Serbian police stationed at the Yarina checkpoint on Kosovo’s administrative line have begun allowing citizens to enter central Serbia on the basis of documents issued by Pristina, Kosovo’s capital.
For its part, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said last Saturday that the Serbian leadership is ready to partially accept the demands of the “authorities” of Kosovo Albanians in Pristina regarding documents for entry into the region with certain conditions and guarantees from the European Union. It was a compromise in response to a proposal by the “authorities” of Pristina to extend the validity of license plates and documents used by Serbs living in northern Kosovo for another two months.
The Yarina checkpoint, one of two crossings linking the unilaterally declared Kosovo to central Serbia, is now calm as a number of journalists are doing their duty. In the area of the checkpoint, a correspondent of the Russian Novosti agency noticed the presence of an armored personnel carrier of the Serbian army, which yesterday, Wednesday, August 31, began its training in the land security zone near Kosovo.
The police officer told reporters: “From now on, we allow the passage of Kosovo documents, whereas before there was only the recognition of Serbian documents, and we do not know how long this procedure will last.” However, signs affixed to the police station in English and Serbian state that recognition of the Pristina documents cannot be interpreted as Belgrade’s recognition of Kosovo’s independence.
At the same time, Serbs traveling to Kosovo are required to affix the letters SRB and the coat of arms of Serbia to their license plates, and a similar procedure applies to Kosovars entering Serbia.
The situation in Kosovo escalated in July last year due to the plans of Pristina from August 1 to ban cars with Serbian numbers and documents from entering the region. In the north of Kosovo, where a number of Serbs live, riots broke out in response, and the authorities of the self-proclaimed republic withdrew the police there. However, after the American request, the Kosovo authorities postponed the entry into force of the ban for a month, that is, until today, the first of September. On the eve of this date, negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina resumed, as a result of which Pristina extended the period for re-registration of cars from Serbian license plates to Kosovo license plates until 31 October.
Source: RIA Novosti