Serbia Puts Troops On High Alert Along Border With Kosovo

Serbia has raised the combat readiness of its troops on the border with Kosovo as a four-day flare-up over mutual recognition of state authority bedevils the Balkan neighbors, with Serbia’s president suggesting there are limits to what Belgrade will “tolerate.”

The new frictions have dampened hopes that a decade of EU-mediated efforts to normalize relations between the two former Yugoslav entities will achieve a breakthrough anytime soon.

Ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo have been blocking the border since Kosovar authorities on September 20 began strictly enforcing a new policy of removing Serbian license plates from incoming vehicles and replacing them with temporary local plates.