Kosovo: Serbia's Open Wound

The territory of Kosovo and central Serbia is separated by an internal border.

The latest escalation began after Pristina announced that from August 1, Serbian passports would no longer be valid on the territory of the self-proclaimed republic. Moreover, Kosovar authorities demanded the re-registration of all car license plates issued in central Serbia.

The local Serbian population mounted up barricades at the internal border crossings, and after the intervention of Western diplomats, the Pristina authorities postponed the steps until September 1st.

In an effort to find a compromise, Brussels organized talks between Belgrade and Pristina on August 18. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Prime Minister of the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government in Pristina Albin Kurti took part, mediated by EU and US representatives Miroslav Lajcak and Gabriel Escobar.

The dialog ended fruitlessly, which raised fears of a new escalation of the situation in Kosovo on September 1st. However, with the mediation of Lajczak and Escobar, a partial compromise was reached - on the issue of personal IDs.

According to Vucic, Serbia would accept documents issued by Kosovar authorities – but the agreement would include a disclaimer stating it does not amount to the recognition of self-proclaimed Kosovo by Belgrade and that the deal has only been struck to ensure freedom of movement. Later, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell confirmed guarantees that Serbia would not demand travel documents from people with Kosovo-issued IDs and vice versa.

In addition, Pristina decided to postpone the mandatory re-registration of car license plates for two months.

However, there is no indication at the moment that an agreement is possible on other contentious issues - despite the fact that most of them are listed in the 2013 Brussels Agreement.

The main issue for Belgrade is the establishment of the Community of Serbian Municipalities, which was also stipulated by the 2013 Brussels Agreement.

The modern history of the dispute dates back to the times of Yugoslavia, when Kosovo and Metohija were an autonomous region within the Republic of Serbia. The collapse of Yugoslavia boosted the separatist aspirations of the Kosovo Albanians and the activities of their terrorist groups in the region.

A coup occurred when Washington declared the Kosovo Liberation Army (which had been in the American list of terrorist organizations at one point) freedom fighters and provided them support.

This resulted in a NATO campaign of aggression against Yugoslavia, after the Racak incident, where the Western countries claimed that Albanian terrorists killed in the village were actually civilians. This provided NATO with an excuse to start bombing the country, killing around 2,500 civilians in a span of 78 days (March 24 – June 10, 1999). Yugoslavia suffered property damage estimated by the then-federal government to be as high as $100 billion.

The aggression ended with the Kumanovo Agreement (June 9, 1999), and a day later with the adoption of Resolution 1244 of the UN Security Council, confirming Yugoslav sovereignty over Kosovo and Metohija. Security in Kosovo and Metohija was handed over to international security forces, the Kosovo Force (KFOR)** military mission.

However, despite the presence of KFOR, the security of the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija was not ensured from the very beginning, and children were among the victims of killings as Serbs were ethnically cleansed. None of these murders have been solved so far. Moreover, on March 17, 2004, during a pogrom organized by Kosovo Albanians against Serbs and their places of worship in the presence of KFOR, 28 people were killed. Another ethnic cleansing of Serbs was carried out; about 150 Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries were damaged or burned.

International negotiations were held to resolve the conflict, but they were not able to reach an agreement between the sides. On February 17, 2008, Pristina’s parliament declared Kosovo independent.

This self-proclamation, which blatantly violated international law and UN Security Council Resolution 1244, was immediately recognized by several Western countries, including the United States. However, despite persistent lobbying for the recognition of Kosovo, this sovereignty has not been recognized by a majority of UN members. On the contrary, thanks to the diplomatic activity of Serbia in recent years, many countries have backtracked on the decision, and the President of Serbia even said that he had notes in his safe from seven other countries regarding the withdrawal of Kosovo recognition.

Realizing the grave nature of the problem in the southern province, as well as the plight of the Serbs in Kosovo, Belgrade has been trying for years to find a solution through dialog. Former Serbian President Vojislav Kostunica's proposal was "more than autonomy, less than independence." At the beginning, the EU also advocated the formula “first standards, then status”, which later evolved into “both standards and status”, and in the end turned into only an insistence on status, that is, pressure on Serbia to recognize the self-proclaimed independence of Kosovo. However, within the EU itself, this independence was not recognized by five member countries: Spain, Greece, Romania, Slovakia, and Cyprus.

The unresolved situation and complicated inter-ethnic relations repeatedly caused outbreaks of violence and crises in 2011, 2012, 2018-2019.

The sides have been trying to reach an agreement. One of the turning points was the adoption of the September 10, 2010 UN General Assembly resolution on Kosovo. It was submitted by Serbia with the support of the EU and stipulated that Brussels assumed mediation in the negotiations.

After years of negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina, the only tangible outcome was the Brussels Agreement on the Principles for the Normalization of Relations. It was signed on April 19, 2013 by the then-Prime Minister of Serbia, Ivica Dacic, and the Prime Minister of the Provisional Institutions in Pristina, Hashim Thaci, in the presence and through the mediation of the then-Head of EU Diplomacy Katherine Ashton.

Although the EU guaranteed the implementation of the agreement, and Belgrade fulfilled everything that was listed in 15 points, Pristina did not fulfill even one of the first six points regarding the formation of the Community of Serbian Municipalities.

Now, Belgrade insists that any further negotiations require the implementation of the 2013 deal, and stresses that Resolution 1244 remains the key document to resolve the situation. This position has the support of two permanent members of the UN Security Council - Russia and China, which remain the guarantors that no solution may be forced onto Serbia to the detriment of the country. The so-called collective West has been openly and blatantly talking about the "mutual recognition" of Belgrade and Pristina for many years, sparing nothing to protect its offspring - the Pristina authorities.

Serbia is determined not to give in to pressure, and, as all relevant surveys show the overwhelming majority of its citizens are against such blackmail. Thus, a poll by the New Serbian Political Thought magazine of July 31, 2022, showed that 82.2% of respondents would not support Serbia's accession to the EU if the condition was the recognition of Kosovo's independence.

Nevertheless, Belgrade has demonstrated flexibility and cares about the security of Serbs in Kosovo, which is why the difficult decision to compromise on ID cards was made. Thus, Serbia refutes accusations of aggressiveness as best as it can and shows that its main goal is to avoid bloodshed if this does not require completely abandoning vital national and state interests (i.e., it does not require recognizing Kosovo).

The situation around Kosovo escalated because of Pristina's plans to ban entry into the region for vehicles with Serbian license plates and documents as of August 1. In the north of Kosovo, where many Serbs live who do not recognize the authorities in Pristina and use cars with Serbian registrations, riots have broken out. In response, the authorities of the self-proclaimed republic of Kosovo sent in police.

At the request of the US, the Kosovo authorities postponed the introduction of the ban for a month, until September 1. Belgrade welcomed the move, stating that the Serbian leadership and the authorities in Pristina were one step away from a serious conflict, but Belgrade officials managed to keep the peace.

On September 1, a new compromise framework for crossing the internal border between central Serbia and Kosovo went into effect. Serbian police officers working at the border began allowing Kosovo Albanians to enter central Serbia with Pristina-issued documents. The same procedure was applied to Serbs entering Kosovo with Serbian documents. Serbian police booths carried notices in English and Serbian stating that recognition of Pristina documents could not be interpreted as Belgrade's recognition of Kosovo's independence.

The government of the self-proclaimed Republic of Kosovo in late October, despite appeals from Western countries, refused to postpone the mandatory re-registration of cars with license plates issued by the Serbian authorities. The new “cut-off” date became November 1.

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti stated that from November 1 to November 21, the owners of cars with Serbian license plates will be issued a warning, and after November 21 they will start getting fines.

In particular, the Kosovo-Albanian authorities require local Serbs to re-register all cars with license plates issued by the Serbian authorities with Serbian symbols and the letters "KM", on plates with Kosovo symbols and the inscription "RKS". And as of November 21, offenders will have to pay a fine starting at 150 euros. The set-up with the fines will be valid until April 21, 2023; after that, Kosovo Police plan to begin confiscating vehicles with Serbian plates.

Protesting against the decision to impose fines as of November 22 on anyone who had not exchanged their Serbian registration plates for Kosovo ones, Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija withdrew from all institutions of the unrecognized state on November 5, and Pristina announced re-elections in the Serbian municipalities.

As of November 20, the Kosovo Police reported that as of November 1, 1,740 warnings have been issued to owners of vehicles in the province with the registration letter PR (Pristina), KM (Kosovska Mitrovica), PZ (Prizren), GL (Gjilan), UR (Urosevac), PE (Peс), DA or ĐA (Gjakova), issued by Serbian authorities, about the requirement to re-register for plates with the symbol RKS, “Republic of Kosovo”.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic held the last round of talks to avoid escalation with Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti in Brussels on November 21. The talks ended inconclusively.

On the evening of November 21, the Serbian leader announced that the authorities of the self-proclaimed Republic of Kosovo had sent Special Forces to the Serbian north of the province. On the morning of Tuesday, November 22, Kosovo authorities began issuing fines for Serbian license plates.

For his part, the Prime Minister of the unrecognized Republic of Kosovo stated on November 21 that the EU proposal to suspend the decision to impose fines and to continue issuing only warnings for Serbian license plates was unacceptable.