Kurti: The clock is ticking, but I won't say anything until the last minute

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti said at today's press conference that the clock was ticking for the implementation of the decision on license plates, but that there is an effort to reach an agreement, Koha reports.

"Now the hours are going by, that's true. But, until the last minute, it's not right for me to talk about what will happen when this deadline expires, because now we have to focus on the last effort to reach an agreement, before the 48 hours are up", said the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, at today's press conference.

Kurti emphasized that he did not go to Brussels to discuss the license plates, but about the final agreement on the normalization of relations with mutual recognition. He thought, he says, that it was on the table this time too, and not the plates. He added that Borrell changed the course of the conversation.

"When they sent me an invitation from Brussels to go to a meeting with the President of Serbia, the main reason why I went was not the license plates. I went to start discussions on the proposal for the final agreement, because that is why I am the Prime Minister. Prime Ministers do not go to Brussels with the fact that the license plates are priority. The big goal was removed from the agenda of the meeting, the need for a European proposal disappeared from the table by adapting it to the goal of Serbia, whose president came to Brussels not because of the EU proposal, but because of the license plates," Kurti said.

According to him, the negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina should have ended by March 2023 at the latest.

"I didn't write that the deadline is March 2023, Brussels wrote it in the invitation. In the invitation from Brussels, which was eventually to be made public, there is a paragraph where it is said that the talks should end in March 2023. I went for it. For the first time we have a deadline. And do you know what I asked there? Let it be February 2023. I said why March, why not February? The sooner the better. No - they said - it's not February, it’s March. I said February, they said March. Let it be March. In the end I agreed, they left it all," Kurti said.