Talks between Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti in Brussels have failed to ease the tense situation in the north of Kosovo linked to a phaseout of Serbian license plates and other documents, fueling concerns the row may turn violent.
But any hopes of success appeared to be dashed quickly after several hours of discussions.
“After many hours of discussion from eight o’clock this morning, the two parties did not agree to a solution today,” Josep Borrell, the EU High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, said in a statement after the talks.
“For the sake of transparency, we submitted a proposal that could avoid this dangerous situation. President Vucic accepted it, but unfortunately, Prime Minister Kurti did not,” he added.
Borrell’s sentiments were echoed by Vucic, who told reporters: “For reasons that are unclear to me, we have failed to reach absolutely any agreement,” Vucic said.
Kurti said the proposal called for Kosovo not to start issuing fines to people whose cars had license plates issued by Serbia and for Belgrade not to issue new license plates for Kosovo Serbs.
He said any proposal that was not accompanied by an agreement “to urgently commit to a final agreement for the complete normalization of relations” was unacceptable.
Following the failure of the talks, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic confirmed that he had met with Kosovo Serb leaders and called them to keep calm.
“I asked them to stay safe and keep calm to keep the peace and respond in the way polite people do, show that we only want to save our own,” Vucic said speaking in an Instagram video.
(Danas, N1, 22.11.2022)
Photo credits: BNEIntelli News
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