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

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BELGRADE, Aug 26 (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 resolve major issues that he did not specify, 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.

Belgrade and Kosovo's 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.

Renewed tensions have been triggered by a directive from Kosovan authorities for local Serbs to switch their car number plates and registrations from Serbian to Kosovan ones from Sept 1.