The long-running dispute over license plates has fueled tensions between Serbia and the former province of Kosovo, which gained independence in 2008 and is home to a small Serbian minority in the north supported by Belgrade. After a meeting of Serbian political representatives in the north of Kosovo, Minister of Communities and Returns Goran Rakic ​​announced that he is resigning from his post in the Pristina government. He told reporters that fellow representatives of the 50,000-strong Serb minority in the north had also resigned from their jobs in municipal administrations, courts, police and parliament and the government in Pristina. Rakic ​​said they would not consider returning unless Pristina lifted the order to change their old car plates, which date back to the 1990s when Kosovo was part of Serbia, to Kosovo state plates. They also demanded the formation of a union of Serb municipalities that would give Serb-majority areas more autonomy, he said. Prime Minister Albin Kurti urged Serbs not to “boycott or abandon the institutions of Kosovo.” “They serve all of us, each one of you. Don’t fall prey to political manipulations and geopolitical games,” Kurti added in a Facebook post. An interior ministry official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that some police units were extending shifts by up to 12 hours from the normal eight to make up for the absence of Serbian officers. NATO, which still has about 3,700 troops to maintain the fragile peace, has asked Pristina and Belgrade to show restraint and prevent escalation. “NATO remains alert and ready to intervene if stability is threatened,” NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana tweeted after speaking with the European Union’s envoy for Kosovo and Serbia, Miroslav Lajcak. On the northern side of Mitrovica, inhabited mainly by Serbs, there was no police. A few Swiss soldiers and Italian Carabinieri, members of the NATO peacekeeping force, were the only ones in uniform in the central square. In Serbia, Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said her government “stands by our brave and proud people in Kosovo.” Kosovo’s government said it will start fining this month Serbian drivers using old pre-independence license plates and confiscate vehicles that have not changed their registration numbers by April 21, 2023. Kosovo’s main backers, the United States and the European Union, urged Kurti to delay implementation of the license plate ruling for another 10 months, but he refused. Ivana Sekularac writes. edited by Helen Popper Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.