December 16, citizens who have not registered their cars in the RKS-Republic of Kosovo, will not be allowed to circulate in the territory of Kosovo with cars bearing license plates with Serbian acronyms, which the state considers illegal.

Today marks the last day for all owners with plates such as KM, PR, PZ, DE, UR and others to return them to plates of the Republic of Kosovo, confirmed for Radio Free Europe, Nora Fetoshi, spokeswoman in Ministry of Internal Affairs.

"After the end of this term, i.e. after December 15, citizens who do not register their cars even after the decision determined by the Government of the Republic of Kosovo, will be counted as owners of unregistered cars and their cars will not be are allowed to circulate in the territory of the Republic of Kosovo, including the border crossing points as provided by the legislation in force. The vehicles will be stopped by the road traffic police and will be fined for traffic violations and the plates will be removed from the vehicle, while if the same vehicle is found again in traffic, that vehicle will be confiscated," said Fetoshi.

The deadline for the conversion of license plates was supposed to end on December 1, but the Government of Kosovo had extended it for 15 days after long queues were observed in front of the centers for re-registration.

License plates KM, and with other Serbian acronyms for the cities of Kosovo are issued by the Serbian authorities and are considered illegal by the authorities in Kosovo.

According to the Government of Kosovo, from November 1 to December 14, 3.405 citizens have converted their license plates to RKS and the municipalities with the largest number are North Mitrovica and Leposaviqi.

"While, from the entire process since last year, there are a total of 4.210 signboard conversions", announced Fetoshi, emphasizing that "in addition to the financial facilities, in the last term, we also changed the administrative instruction so that our citizens of the Serbian community in the north to be able to register their cars with the license plates of the region at all Vehicle Registration Centers regardless of their place of residence".

According to the Government of Kosovo, this entire process is aimed at legality and traffic safety.

The circulation of cars with such license plates has been tolerated until now in the north, while in the areas inhabited by Serbs south of the Ibri, they were removed from use more than ten years ago.

According to the calculations of the Serbian civil sector, there were about 10.000 cars with KM license plates in the municipalities in the north of Kosovo, inhabited by a majority of Serbs.

The issue of KM license plates has caused a crisis in the north that led to protests, the exit of Serbs from institutions and the setting up of barricades.

Tensions in the north culminated on September 24 of this year with an armed attack on the Kosovo Police by a group of local Serbs, where a Kosovo policeman and three Serb attackers were killed. /rel/