Stano: Kosovo needs to refrain from action against owners of KM plates

BRUSSELS - EU spokesperson Peter Stano said on Thursday Kosovo needed to refrain from taking action against owners of vehicles with Serbian KM licence plates and respect a status quo until the problem was resolved permanently through dialogue.

Stano said this at a press briefing at the European Commission headquarters, in response to a request to comment on a statement by the so-called Kosovo's interior minister, who had accused Serbia of issuing and renewing KM licence plates.

Stano said the EU had taken note of Belgrade's decision of December 6, under which stickers for KM plates will not be renewed, and noted that vehicle insurance renewal and technical inspection had to do with vehicles rather than with plates and could not count as renewal of plates.

He reiterated an EU call for respect of a November 23 decision on licence plates.

He said all parties needed to respect agreements and turn to normalisation of relations.

Stano noted that all questions about interpretations of what had been agreed on November 23 needed to be addressed in discussions with dialogue facilitators, rather than through uncoordinated actions on the ground that could destabilise an already fragile situation.