Nato troops patrol Kosovo-Serbia border after truck blockade – Occasions of India

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JARINJE: Troopers with a Nato-led peacekeeping mission are conserving watch on the Kosovo-Serbia border after the 2 nations reached a deal to deescalate tensions triggered by a dispute over car license plates.
Kosovo Force troops from the USA, Italy and Poland have been seen patrolling on Saturday as ethnic Serbs eliminated the vans they’d used to dam the street to 2 border crossings whereas protesting the Kosovo authorities’s resolution to not enable autos with Serbian license plates into the nation.
Kosovar particular police forces additionally pulled again from the border, the place they have been deployed two weeks in the past to take away the license plates from coming into automobiles and to switch them with non permanent registration in Kosovo.
The federal government in Pristina mentioned they have been replicating what Serbia had achieved to Kosovar motorists for a decade. Kosovo was a Serbian province earlier than it declared independence in 2008, and Serbian troops and ethnic Albanian separatists fought a bloody conflict in Kosovo through the Nineteen Nineties.
European Union mediator Miroslav Lajcak persuaded representatives from the neighboring Balkan nations this week to let the Kosovo Power (KFOR) troops take over the areas for the subsequent 14 days.
“As from this weekend and for the subsequent two weeks, KFOR will preserve a brief strong and agile presence within the space,” a press release from the Nato mission mentioned.
As a part of the settlement, each nations will put stickers over the opposite’s identify and emblem on license plates of autos coming into their territory.
KFOR, made up of round 4,000 troops from 28 nations, is led by Nato with assist from the United Nations, the European Union and others. Its intention is to stave off lingering ethnic tensions between Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority and minority ethnic Serbs.
The USA and a lot of the West acknowledge Kosovo’s independence, however, Serbia, supported by its allies Russia and China, doesn’t.
EU-facilitated negotiations to normalize relations between Pristina and Belgrade began in 2011 and have produced greater than 30 agreements, that are both noticed poorly or under no circumstances.


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