Serbia is prepared to allow the use of personal documents and licence plates issued by the partially recognised Republic of Kosovo, announced President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić, cited by Serbia's public broadcaster RTS.
Furthermore, the agreement would be formulated as a “denial of responsibility”, thus, it would not mean Serbia recognised Kosovo’s independence. Belgrade expects that, in response, Kosovo would not prohibit Serbians living in the north of Kosovo in the towns of Leposavić and Gračanica from crossing the border using Serbian documents.
Vučić said that the country was expecting appropriate guarantees from the European Union in the coming days.
On 31 July, Kosovo announced that, starting from 1 August, personal documents and licence plates issued by Serbia to Serbians living in the north of Kosovo will have to be replaced with documents and plates issued by Kosovo. There are similar bans put on Kosovo-issued documents in Serbia.
Afterwards, the situation in Kosovo escalated: gunshots were heard, local citizens started building barricades, passage through border checkpoints was suspended for citizens. On the evening of 31 July, Vučić conducted a meeting of the General Staff and asked the international community to influence Kosovo’s decision.
Eventually, the Kosovo government postponed the introduction of the ban on Serbian documents until 1 September. The decision was made after a meeting between President of Kosovo Vjosa Osmani, Prime Minister Albin Kurti, and the US ambassador in the country Jeff Hovenier had taken place.
