Kosovo

Officials in Belgrade and Pristina confirmed the existence of a new German-French proposal for a deal on Kosovo’s final status, but disagreed about what the document actually says.

A deputy commander of NATO's peacekeeping mission in Kosovo says the alliance is "ready to act" and even prepared to increase troop numbers if trouble erupts amid a vehicle-licensing standoff between Kosovo and Serbia.

Three political blocs appeared to have sealed a deal to form a new government just before Monday’s midnight deadline, but one party withheld its signature.

An agreement between Serbia and Kosovo, mediated over the weekend by the European Union and the U.S., settled a dispute over identity documents, but tensions over the matter, as well as license plates for ethnic Serbs in the north of Kosovo, are a reminder of the fragile stability in the region.

EU and US envoys Miroslav Lajcak and Gabriel Escobar landed in Pristina on Wednesday in an attempt to bridge differences between Kosovo and Serbia ahead of September 1, when the Kosovo authorities intend to bring in regulations on vehicle licence plates and ID documents for border crossing which Serbs strongly oppose.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on August 21 that minority Serbs working in Kosovo institutions will leave their jobs unless a deal is reached to end their "persecution."

NATO will increase its peacekeeping force in Kosovo if there is an escalation of tensions with neighbouring Serbia, the alliance’s chief said on Wednesday (17 August), on the eve of EU-facilitated talks between the estranged western Balkan neighbours.

Kosovo prime minister Albin Kurti warned of possible armed conflict with Serbia, following heightened border tensions with Belgrade over the past month. "We should not exclude that these aggressive policies of Belgrade could also turn into an assault against Kosovo in one way or the other," Kurti told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday (10 August).

Two border crossings between Kosovo and Serbia were reopened on Monday (1 August) after NATO-led peacekeepers supervised the removal of blockades that Serb protestors had set up over the weekend in a region existing with a fragile peace since the end of the 1998-1999 war.

Kosovo's government has postponed the implementation of new rules that would force people in majority ethnic Serb areas to swap their Serbian-issued car number plates for Kosovan-issued ones. The rules were due to come into force at midnight on Monday. But on Sunday ethnic Serbs in the north barricaded roads and armed men fired shots in protest.