Number plate row fuels ethnic tensions in Kosovo as Serbia seeks more talks

Reuters. FILE PHOTO: U.S. troops take part in a KFOR patrol, near Jarinje border crossing in Kosovo, August 18, 2022. REUTERS/Fatos Bytyci/File Photo

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Mediated talks over the status of ethnic Serbs in Kosovo have failed to ease tensions - fuelled by a dispute over car number plates - between Belgrade and authorities in Pristina, Serbia's president said on Friday.

Aleksandar Vucic said hours of talks with European Union and U.S. envoys had failed to lead to agreement over major issues - which he did not specify in detail - and that he hoped further talks would lead to some compromise.

After a bloody war in the late 1990s, predominantly ethnic Albanian Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, something Belgrade - with the backing of China, Russia and five EU member states - refuses to recognise.

The Kosovo Serb minority concentrated in the country's north claim entitlement under a 2013 agreement to an association of semi-autonomous majority-Serb municipalities, which Pristina refuses to implement.