Kosovo Serbs on Saturday resigned from the police, justice and other government services in four northern mostly Serb-populated municipalities in Kosovo. Report that local media Sunday. The reason for the resignations is the recently introduced obligation to have Kosovar number plates on the car. The Serbs consider this a provocation and repression.
The resignations came after a meeting in the town of Zvecan, organized by the Serbian party Srpska Lista. According to the party, the mayors of Serbian-majority municipalities, MPs, judges, prosecutors and Kosovar police officers have all resigned from their jobs. During the meeting, police officers took off their Kosovar police uniforms demonstratively.
Nenad Djuric
On Friday, the regional director of the Kosovo Police for the Serb majority in northern Kosovo, Nenad Djuric, was suspended on suspicion of calling for resistance. Djuric said on Thursday that police in northern Kosovo will not implement the government’s decision to issue reprimands to drivers with Serbian license plates.
On Sunday, several thousand citizens took to the streets in Mitrovica, a predominantly Serb province in northern Kosovo, to protest the suspension of Djuric. They carried banners that read “we are all Nenad Đuric”. The protest ended without disturbances.
License plate law
The conflict between Kosovo and Serbia, which occasionally flares up again, is formally over license plates. Kosovars who want to drive into Serbia have had to purchase a temporary number plate for more than ten years now. Last year, Kosovo threatened to impose the same rule on Serb motorists. This was seen by Serbia as provocation and oppression of the Serbian minority in Kosovo, who often drive cars registered in Serbia.
After EU mediation, Kosovo withdrew from the measure last autumn, but an attempt by the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, to introduce the license plate law on 1 September has breathed new life into the conflict between neighboring countries in recent weeks.
Kosovo has about 100,000 inhabitants who identify as Serb, out of a population of 6.8 million people.
Also read: What is behind the escalation of the conflict between Serbia and Kosovo?