Kosovo declared independence from Serbia 14 years ago, but the country’s Serb population still remains loyal to Serbia.
The unrest that raged in the Serb region of Kosovo last week started with the new entry regulations, but they are a continuation of the inflamed relations between the country’s Albanian majority and the Serb minority.
Many Kosovo Serbs still do not recognize Kosovo’s own institutions, even though the country declared independence from Serbia already in 2008. One example of loyalty to Serbia is that around 50,000 Kosovo Serbs still have Serbian identity papers and Serbian license plates on their cars.
Fresh unrest was triggered by Kosovo’s order that Kosovo Serbs must change their license plates to Kosovar ones within two months. In addition, Kosovo required that holders of Serbian identity cards must exchange them for temporary documents for the duration of their stay in Kosovo.
In protest, Serbs blocked roads in the northern part of the country and unidentified men shot at the police. No one was injured. According to the police, several Albanians who came to the blocked roads were beaten. The police said on Sunday that they had closed two border crossing points due to the tightening of the situation.
In order to calm the situation, the Kosovo government decided on Sunday to postpone the implementation of the license plate reform for a month. However, on Monday, the authorities began to issue Kosovar identity papers to border crossers because the Serbs had not agreed to dismantle the roadblocks.
A year ago, the Serbs also blocked the roads in the same area when Kosovo tried to get them to change their license plates to Kosovar ones.
More than a hundred countries recognized independence
When Yugoslavia began to disintegrate in the 1990s, Kosovo was a province of Serbia. The majority of Kosovars are Albanians, and they also began to demand independence.
In the late 1990s, war broke out between Serbia and Albanian guerrillas as Serbia tried to suppress the independence movement. The war drove hundreds of thousands of Kosovars into refugees.
The Serbs were inclined to withdraw their forces from Kosovo when the military alliance NATO started bombing it in 1999. The UN began to administer Kosovo and was able to develop independent state institutions. About 280,000 Serbs fled Kosovo.
In the 21st century, Serbia and Kosovo negotiated Kosovo’s position as the UN chief negotiator Martti Ahtisaaren through. Serbia would have only agreed to limited autonomy for Kosovo. Kosovo demanded independence and after negotiations failed, the country declared itself independent in 2008.
Kosovo’s independence has been recognized by more than a hundred countries, including Finland. Serbia and Russia, for example, have not done it instead. (<-here you could also mention Spain, as far as I know they don't recognize Kosovo either)
In 2013, Serbia and Kosovo started negotiations to resolve open issues, but little progress has been made.
Many of the Serbs who remained in Kosovo still do not recognize their country’s independence, which strains relations with the Albanian population. In the Serbian areas of the northern part of Kosovo, the Serbian dinar is used in shops, and school education is based on the curriculum approved by Serbia, image by the news channel France 24 (you go to another service).
For example, the main employers of the 12,000 Serb population in the city of Mitrovica, which has more than 80,000 inhabitants, are institutions financed by Serbia, the news channel says.