Kosovo's government has decided to cancel a decision to put stickers on vehicles with Serbian license plates to hide their origin following a move by Belgrade last month to allow vehicles with Kosovar license plates to move freely in its territory from the beginning of this week.
Prime Minister Albin Kurti's government said late on January 4 that canceling the requirement to put stickers over the part of license plates showing a car was from Serbia "is an act of good neighborliness and comes after full recognition of the number plates of the Republic of Kosovo by Serbia."
Vehicle license plates became a flashpoint over their display of national symbols. Until now, vehicles from either Kosovo or Serbia could cross the border only if they placed stickers to hide the symbols.
Serbia decided on December 25 to allow all vehicles from Kosovo with Republic of Kosovo license plates to cross freely, a move the EU welcomed as a "positive step."
Serbia in 2011 agreed to recognize Kosovar license plates and vice versa after a European Union-mediated deal, but the decision was never fully implemented.
Kosovo last year pulled back from a controversial decision to penalize drivers who did not swap vehicle license plates issued by Serbia for those issued by Pristina.
The EU has mediated talks since 2013 aimed at normalizing relations between the two neighbors, who share a 366-kilometer border. But lingering resentments are high, and officials on both sides have been reluctant to abandon nationalist rhetoric in pursuit of a breakthrough.
Ethnic cleansing and other atrocities during fighting in the 1990s left many areas ethnically homogeneous, although ethnic Serbs predominate in northern Kosovo and ethnic Albanians are a majority in a few communities in southern Serbia. Belgrade refuses to recognize an independent Kosovo.
Two recent outbreaks of violence in northern Kosovo -- when ethnic Serbs clashed with NATO peacekeepers in May followed by a deadly cross-border assault on Kosovar police by commando-style gunmen in September -- have underscored the risk to regional stability posed by ongoing Albanian-Serb enmity.