(5 Nov 2022)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jarinje - 5 November 2022
1. Various of police, vehicles and border officials at Jarinje crossing between Kosovo and Serbia
2. Various of EULEX (European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo) officers (wearing blue caps) at Jarinje crossing
3. Close of back of EULEX vehicle
4. Various of EULEX officers
ASSOCIATED PRESS
North Mitrovica - 5 November 2022
5. Various views overlooking North Mitrovica (town in North Kosovo which has ethnic Serb majority)
6. Various street scenes with Serbian flags strung across roads and in balconies
STORYLINE:
Rules on vehicle license plates remained in place at Kosovo's border on Saturday after representatives of the country's ethnic Serb minority resigned in protest over the dismissal of a police officer who did not follow the government's decision to impose them.
Earlier this week Pristina authorities dismissed a senior Serb police officer in northern Kosovo, where most of the ethnic Serbs live, who refused to respect the decision to change vehicle license plates in Kosovo to ones issued by Kosovo.
The shift has ignited volatile issues about Kosovo's sovereignty, especially among its Serb minority, many of whom still want the former Serb province to be part of Serbia and not independent.
Serbia itself has never recognized the independence of Kosovo.
As the measure came into effect Tuesday, Kosovo authorities said enforcement would be gradual.
In three weeks Pristina authorities will be issuing warnings to the ethnic Serbs who keep their old license number plates.
For the next two months they will be fined, and for three other months until April 21, they can drive only with replaced temporary local plates.
Ethnic Serbs have a government minister, 10 parliamentarians and other top posts in governing, police and judiciary in the four local communities dominated by them.
All resigned and senior police officers symbolically took off their uniforms after a meeting Saturday. The effect of the mass resignation was unclear.
Trouble brewed this summer over Serbia's and Kosovo's refusal to recognize each other's identity documents and vehicle license plates. Kosovo Serbs in the north put up roadblocks, sounded air raid sirens and fired guns into the air.
In August, EU and U.S. envoys negotiated a solution to the travel documents problem, allowing the situation to calm down.
Then Pristina also decided to postpone to Nov. 1 the decision to require vehicles holding old or Serbian license plates to replace them with Kosovar ones.
That also meant that vehicles entering from Serbia had to replace Serbian license plates with Kosovo ones.
For the past 11 years, the reverse has been required by Serbia for vehicles coming in from Kosovo.
Belgrade lost control over Kosovo in 1999 after NATO bombed the country to stop its brutal crackdown against ethnic Albanian separatists.
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