The first reaction of international representatives come in after yesterday’s removal of monolingual signs in Cyrillic and Latin and the installation of new bilingual ones – first in Albanian, then in Serbian in the Latin alphabet. The head of the European Union Office in Kosovo, Tomaš Szunyog, reacted.
He called on the Kosovo authorities to implement the process of replacing, as he said, the official signs, after consultations and interpretation of the law.
„Regarding the recent initiative to replace the official signs with the names of places in the north of Kosovo, I appeal to the authorities to implement the process only after consultation with the Commissioner for Languages and a positive interpretation of the Law on the Use of Languages.’
Yesterday, with the assistance of the Kosovo Police, on the road Mitrovica – Lesak – Jarinje, the existing monolingual signs in the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets were removed and new bilingual signs were installed – first in Albanian, then in Serbian in Latin script.
The sign removal was organized by the Kosovo Ministry of Infrastructure, Minister Liburn Aliu confirmed yesterday, stating that „in accordance with the laws of Kosovo“ they are removing „all Serbian traffic signs that are in Cyrillic and replacing them with official signs“.
This procedure triggered an avalanche of mutually opposing reactions on both the Serbian and Albanian sides, with a special focus on the Cyrillic alphabet.
At the same time, media in Pristina, referring to the statements of this minister, stressed the fact that Cyrillic characters are being removed in their headlines.
The word „Cyrillic“, however, has been removed from the minister’s announcement today, which now states that the ministry has undertaken to „remove all traffic signs of the State of Serbia“ and replace them with „official signs of settlements in accordance with the law“.
Most of those same signs, however, were spray painted over less than 24 hours after they were installed. Albanian names of places have been crossed out with black paint, and in some cases the whole sign was painted over.
On the other hand, the Kosovo Ministry of Infrastructure continued with the installation of traffic and road signs today.
Read more:
Albanian inscriptions on some newly installed bilingual signs have been spray-painted
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