Serbia's Vucic Vows to Stick to Peace Policy Amid Rising Tensions in Kosovo

BELGRADE (Sputnik) - Serbia will continue to strive for peace and stability, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Saturday amid rising tensions in Kosovo and Metohija over Pristina's new controversial actions.

On Friday night, Vucic spoke behind closed doors for about five hours with EU Special Representative for the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue Miroslav Lajcak. On Saturday morning, the Serbian leader held a meeting with the Cabinet of Ministers, as well as meetings with Chinese Ambassador Chen Bo and Russian Ambassador Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko.

"We aren't stepping back from the responsible policy of peace and stability," Vucic said on social media after a government meeting.

Due to the tense situation in the Kosovo region, Vucic cancelled all of his visits abroad.

On Thursday, representatives of the Kosovo Serbs, the Serb List party, said that they would consider withdrawing from all organizations of the self-proclaimed Republic of Kosovo due to Pristina's decision to remove the Serbian police chief for refusing to issue written warnings to local Serbs regarding car plates. Later, Kosovo Serbs scheduled a demonstration on November 6 in the North Kosovska Mitrovica municipality.

The Kosovar authorities require that local Serbs re-register their car plates, demanding that they feature the EU-standard letter code of RKS (Republic of Kosovo) instead of KM, the Serbian identifier for the disputed region of Kosovska Mitrovica on the border. The deadline for the re-registration was October 31.