Kosovo has turned away cars with what it says are illegal Serbian license plates issued after December 2022, Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla said on January 18, accusing Serbia of violating an agreement reached in November on the contentious issue.
Svecla confirmed that some cars with the KM abbreviation, which stands for the city of Mitrovica in northern Kosovo, on their license plates were denied entry into Kosovo on January 18 because they were re-registered in December.
The November agreement said Serbia was to stop producing these license plates, and, according to Kosovo officials, re-registering existing ones.
"Serbia has breached the November 2022 accord on car plates. [Kosovo's] Police Border Directorate has recently discovered cases of cars with illegal plates renewed by Serbian authorities as late as December 2022. As a result, entry into Kosovo was denied," Svecla wrote on Twitter.
Serbia should be held responsible for "flagrantly violating" an accord reached under EU auspices and "deceptively inviting Kosovo Serbs to renew their car registration," he said.
"Similar cases of cars with the license plates in question will not be allowed to enter or operate within the territory of the Republic of Kosovo, considering that they are illegal and there is an agreement on the cessation of production or their re-registration," he added on Facebook.
Serbian officials in Belgrade and Kosovo reacted angrily to the ban on the entry of cars with KM license plates. Petar Petkovic, head of an office under the Serbian government that coordinates relations with Serbs in Kosovo, accused Kosovo of trying to cause a new crisis and tensions.
He said barring cars with KM license plates issued since December constituted a "flagrant violation and violation of the agreement on license plates" reached in Brussels in November after a crisis that threatened the peace in Kosovo.
Ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo quit their jobs in November over the government's plans to implement a license-plate conversion program.
Petkovic said the November agreement foresees that until a final decision on the plates is made, the KM license plates can remain in use.
Serbia, according to the agreement, agreed to stop issuing illegal KM license plates, and Kosovo agreed to remove the decision on reprimands and fines for drivers of cars with such license plates.
According to Petkovic, the agreement states that Pristina is obliged to suspend its punitive license-conversion policy and all activities related to the re-registration of cars with KM plates.
Petkovic said that the actions are bringing new tensions and problems to northern Kosovo and that he expects the European Union, which is the guarantor of the agreement, to protect and enable its implementation.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell in November also confirmed that Serbia will no longer issue license plates with Serbian acronyms for Kosovo's cities and Kosovo will suspend further actions related to the re-registration of cars, inviting the parties for discussion on next steps.
EU spokesman Peter Stano on January 19 called on both sides to observe the November deal and refrain from escalating the situation.
"We urge all stakeholders to fully and unconditionally respect the agreement and related settlements reached on November 23, by which both Kosovo and Serbia agreed to specific measures related to license plates to de-escalate the situation and to fully focus on the EU proposal on the normalization of their relations," Stano told journalists in Brussels.
"This included Kosovo refraining from any further enforcement action against owners of KM vehicles and effectively maintaining the status quo until the issue can be resolved in the dialogue in a sustainable manner, and Serbia not issuing new KM plates," he added.