The re-registration of vehicles from Serbian to Kosovan license plates is underway, the then outgoing Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Kosovo, Milan Radojevic, told the public in 2018. Four years later, now serving as the mayor of North Mitrovica, Radojevic shared a completely different message – that the Kosovo Serbs will not give up on Serb IDs and license plates.
This summer, tensions heightened in the north of Kosovo when the Kosovan government decided that all owners of vehicles with license plates with Serbian markings of towns in Kosovo must re-register to RKS. After the situation escalated and the local Kosovo Serbs erected barricades, the implementation of this decision – initially scheduled for August 1st, was postponed by a month – to September 1st. Once the deadline for the re-registration expires, that is, from November, the owners of such vehicles will not be allowed to drive them, Pristina also announced.
While the Pristina side considers the issue of Serbian license plates a done deal, the matter remains unresolved for Belgrade, but also for the European Union, which called on the sides to reach a solution in the coming period.
The largest Kosovo Serb party Srpska Lista also called for a solution, i.e. a „compromise“, underlining that Kosovo Serbs will not give up their IDs and plates.
The same message was shared by the mayor of North Mitrovica, Milan Radojevic, on September 1st – the day the re-registration process to RKS began.
At that time, as numerous Belgrade media outlets reported, Radojevic told Tanjug that the fact that „no one applied for vehicle re-registration“ is a direct message by the Serbs from the north of Kosovo to Pristina and Albin Kurti.
He added that even once the re-registration deadline expires “no one will register at the registration centers and submit a request for re-registration“.
„It is a clear signal of what the Serbs think. At a joint session with the mayors, we adopted joint conclusions in which we gave absolute support to Aleksandar Vucic, but we made it clear that we will not tolerate unilateral moves by Pristina,“ said the mayor of North Mitrovica.
Back in April of 2018, however, Radojevic, who held the position of Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs in the Kosovo government at the time, said in an interview for Radio Kontakt plus that all citizens who own vehicles with KM, PR, GL licenses plates and the like can re-register their vehicles to KS (which were still valid at the time) or RKS plates.
Radojevic also explained the re-registration process in great detail.
KoSSev tried to get in touch with Radojevic earlier today, with a request for comment on how he switched from informing citizens in 2018 that they could re-register their vehicles to now saying that those same citizens will not give up their license plates.
By the time the news was published, our calls and written inquiries remained unanswered.
Preuzimanje i objavljivanje tekstova sa portala KoSSev nije dozvoljeno bez navođenja izvora. Hvala na poštovanju etike novinarske profesije.
