The situation is heating up: could another war conflict erupt in Hungary’s neighborhood?
Voltage increases due to license plates
Serbia does not recognize Kosovo’s independence, so since 2008 all Kosovo motorists visiting Serbia have been obliged to buy temporary license plates to travel on Serbian roads. Without it all, they will not be allowed into the country. A few days ago, the Kosovo leadership announced a similar provision:
Serbian drivers will have to switch to a 60-day, temporary license if they want to use Kosovo roads.
The Kosovo response has also provoked a strong backlash from Kosovo Serbs and Serbia. Some Serbs in Kosovo blocked the border section separating Kosovo and Serbia with trucks or set fire to two municipal offices in Pristina. In Zvecan, a hand grenade attack hit a vehicle registration office, but fortunately the explosives did not work. According to the latest information, the blockade continues to block traffic to this day, and Kosovo Serb activists have promised they will not even move it until the law is repealed.
Serbia prepared a soldier stationed near the Kosovo border and began patrolling the border with fighter jets. Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic described Kosovo’s law as a “criminal act”. He added: they are committed to peace, in turn
they will not tolerate the humiliation of the population of Serbia.
Kosovo side about this leaking pictures that special police forces march with great force to the border.
NATO has also activated itself. Currently, more than 5,000 NATO troops are serving in peacekeeping in Kosovo; the military organization said the international team would increase the intensity of their patrols in the northern part of the region, close to the Serbian border. Hungarian soldiers are also serving in the area.
To this day, Kosovo shares public opinion
The issue of Kosovo’s independence still divides the international community, even EU and NATO countries and some major powers.
Kosovo declared its independence in 2008, but this is only recognized by some EU countries, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and a few African or South American countries. In Central Europe, Hungary recognizes Kosovo, but Ukraine, Bosnia, Slovakia and Romania do not. China and Russia are blocking the region’s accession to the UN.
The issue of Kosovo divides the public because many countries with a heterogeneous ethnic composition fear that some minority groups will also want to break up, citing Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence.
These fears have been confirmed in several cases: Crimea held a secession referendum from Ukraine citing Kosovo’s priority, or reference was made to the breakaway area in connection with Nagorno-Karabakh and Abkhazia. But Spain, for example, does not recognize Kosovo because of the Catalan separatists, Israel because of the Palestinians, and Slovakia and Romania because of the Hungarian minority.
Serbia still retains the region as its own territory, but in 2013, with the signing of the Brussels Convention, it expressed its intention to find a peaceful solution to the conflict with Kosovo. Subsequent negotiations have yielded limited results to date.
Serbia lost control of Kosovo after wartime from February 1998 to June 1999 against the Albanian separatist Kosovo Liberation Army (UÇK) and smaller militias operating in the region, but NATO intervened in the conflict in the spring of 1999 and drove the troops out of the area.
Cover image: Erkin Keci / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images