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The chief negotiator of Kosovo, Besnik Bislimi, said today that they have not reached an agreement with the Serbian side on the issue of license plates.
“No, unfortunately I can not give good news. Our working group again tried yesterday to come up with a draft proposal that would be forwarded to us today for discussion. “Unfortunately, there is zero readiness on the part of the Serbian side to agree on a possible solution within the framework provided by the third point of the agreement of September 30”, said Bislimi.
Bislimi also said that it is up to the heads of state how to proceed further, as the temporary agreement on license plates expires today.
“It is a political decision that the heads of state must make on how to move forward, but there will be no immediate action, everything will be well prepared and agreed with the international community. “Everything will be in function of establishing order”, said Bislimi.
He added that Kosovo will treat freedom of movement in the same way as Serbia.
“Meanwhile, for the ‘KM’ signs which have been and continue to be illegal, an option will be offered on how to switch to normal license plates”, said Bislimi.
Bislim’s remarks come after he first met in Brussels with the European Union’s Special Envoy for Dialogue, Miroslav Lajcak, as today is the deadline to find a permanent solution to the issue of vehicle license plates.
Miroslav Lajcak has managed to persuade the parties to sit at the joint table.
Petar Petkovi, from the Serbian side and Besnik Bislimi from the Kosovar side have not met together since last summer.
Bislimi also said that in the meeting with the Serbian chief negotiator, Belgrade showed “that it does not want a solution”.
“Even today, when we were confronted with the bitter fact that the Serbian side does not want a solution, we tried to find a transitional option, transferring the responsibility from the working group to the chief negotiators for a transitional period of 30 days, even here Serbia was not ready to cooperate. “So I can say that the license plate agreement or the idea of reaching a license plate agreement has ended without success”, added Bislimi.
Meanwhile, the media in Serbia have reported that Kosovo and Serbia have agreed to exchange archival data. But Bislimi said the news was untrue.
“In no case was the topic of archives mentioned or touched upon, neither in a bilateral nor in a trilateral meeting,” he said.
Earlier on April 21, Lajcak met with the Serbian delegation, led by Petar Petkovic.
Lajçak also confirmed the meetings in Brussels for license plates, but added that in these meetings they are also talking about the next high-level meeting of the dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia.
“Today is the meeting of chief negotiators between Kosovo and Serbia. “We have a full agenda with current issues, including car license plates, implementation of past dialogue agreements and preparations for the next summit,” Lajcak wrote on Twitter.
Earlier in the day, European officials warned of the need to reach an agreement.
“We continue to remind them that it is urgent to find a common language. This will require political flexibility and compromise. “We can not wait because some of the issues require urgent action on our part,” said Elsa Fenet, head of the Western Balkans Division at the European External Action Service.
Kosovo and Serbia today, April 21, expire to reach a final agreement on the license plates of Serbian and Kosovar vehicles entering and leaving the borders of the two countries.
Sources in the EU have previously said that some ideas have been identified on the issue of license plates, but it is the responsibility of the parties to agree on one of these solutions.
Lajcak, on April 20, ordered that it is up to the chief negotiators of Kosovo and Serbia to reach “an agreement to move forward” regarding the issue of license plates, when they meet on April 21.
He said through a post on Twitter that the experts of Kosovo and Serbia on April 20 held the last meeting of the working groups in Brussels.
“With their work, they have prepared the discussions of the chief negotiators, which will be held tomorrow [e enjte, 21 prill]. “Now, it is up to the chief negotiators to reach an agreement to move forward,” Lajcak wrote on Twitter.
Meanwhile, a day before the deadline, Miroslav Lajcak stayed in Belgrade, where he met with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.
Lajcak from Belgrade said that the EU expects the parties to implement all agreements reached in the dialogue.
So far, the parties have not given signals – at least not publicly – that they are close to a permanent license plate agreement.
Arton Demhasaj, director of the non-governmental organization “Çohu”, based in Pristina, says that reaching an eventual compromise on the issue of license plates is difficult, given that, so far, there does not seem to be rapprochement between the parties.
Demhasaj says that now there are two options: for the interim agreement to be extended for a while, or for the parties to return to the initial positions that were before the interim agreement.
Even Duusan Radakovi., From the organization “Advocacy Center for Democratic Culture”, based in North Mitrovica, does not expect the parties to reach a permanent agreement on license plates until April 21, although, according to him, the parties have given some proposals.
He emphasizes that, based on the information he has, one of the options for an agreement is for Kosovo to change its license plates and instead of the acronym RKS [Republika e Kosovës]to have the acronym SOC, which means Kosovo.
On September 30 last year in Brussels an interim agreement was reached regarding the license plates, provided that a final agreement was reached within six months.
With the interim agreement, Kosovo and Serbia have agreed that the vehicles of the two countries, while circulating in each other’s territories, will cover the state symbols on license plates with white sticky papers.
The agreement was reached after several days of unrest in northern Kosovo, where some local Serbs had blocked roads, to oppose the then decision of the Government of Kosovo for reciprocity measures. With those measures, vehicles with Serbian license plates, upon entering the territory of Kosovo, had to place temporary license plates – similar to what the drivers of vehicles with Kosovo license plates did when they entered Serbia.
The Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, stated on April 18 that for Kosovo is indisputable and non-negotiable “the principle of reciprocity as the essence of any future solution” to the issue of license plates.
Kurti’s statements were seen as a threat in Serbia./Rel
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