Cyrillic stickers placed over the names of places in Albanian on road signs in the north of Kosovo

Unknown persons placed stickers with Cyrillic inscriptions over the Albanian names of places on some traffic signs in the north of Kosovo, namely in the municipalities of Zvečan and Leposavić, late last night.

In mid-March, the Kosovo Ministry of Infrastructure, assisted by the Kosovo police, removed the existing monolingual Serbian signs in Cyrillic and Latin and installed new bilingual signs – first in Albanian, then in Serbian using the Latin alphabet, in the area of the north of Kosovo.

Within a day, the names of the places in Albanian were painted over on many signs, and a few days later the newly installed signs were cleaned.

However, late last night, several of these road signs were covered with stickers with names of places written in Serbian Cyrillic, namely the part of the sign with Albanian inscriptions.

Such signs were spotted in Grabovac in Zvečan, Kajkovo and Lešak in the municipality of Leposavić.

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On some boards along this route there are signs that the sticker has been removed in the meantime.

Previously, the removal of the old signs in Cyrillic and the installation of new ones – first in Albanian, and then in Latin Serbian – caused an avalanche of reactions on the Serbian and Kosovar sides.

The fact that the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet was not used on the new signs was particularly highlighted, but also the fact that the names were written first in Albanian and then in Serbian, even though they were set up in areas with Serb-majority population.

The deputy of the Kosovo ombudsman, as well as the commissioner for languages from the Office of the Prime Minister of Kosovo, spoke out about this issue.

Pristina was also criticized by some international representatives in Kosovo, who said that the signs should be installed only after they interpret the law and consult with the commissioner for languages.

On the other hand, as per the interpretation of the law by the Kosovo Minister of Infrastructure, the installation of signs without Cyrillic is allegedly in accordance with the law.

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