Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz hailed the decision of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to grant Kosovo a dialing prefix as historic, the Austrian news agency APA reported. Kurz recalled that Austria applied on behalf of Kosovo on 1 January 2016 and that the ITU decision will enable cheaper and simpler telephone calls. Furthermore, he said the agreement reached between Kosovo and Serbia under the EU facilitation stipulates the establishment of a new telephone operator, part of the Serbian Telecom, which will be licensed by the Kosovo Regulatory Authority.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has assigned the "geographic area" of Kosovo the +383 dialling code pursuant to the Brussels agreement on telecommunications and a formal letter from Serbia.

"This is a historic achievement in the field of telecommunications that strengthens the international entity of Kosovo," the website of the Kosovo government quoted Minister for Dialogue Edita Tahiri as saying.

Kosovo’s Prime Minister, Isa Mustafa, said today that Kosovo has made a big step in completing He said that Kosovo has made a big step in completing the statehood by obtaining international dialing code +383. In a post on Facebook, Mustafa said that the allocation of telephone code strengthens Kosovo’s sovereignty. “Today, the Republic of Kosovo has been allocated the international dialing code +383. Kosovo has achieved a breakthrough by making an important step in completing the elements of statehood.

Kosovo President Hashim Thaci through a Facebook post today said that illegal operations and the current obstacles would be eliminated entirely with the telephone code for Kosovo. He added that this strengthens the position of Kosovo in the field of telecommunications, and opens ways for the state program of digitization. “The position of our country is strengthened even more in the international arena with the new code in the field of telecommunications. +383 telephone code is the property of Kosovo, which will be administered by our institutions.

Kosovo’s Prime Minister Isa Mustafa told members of the Assembly in Pristina today that Kosovo will be the sole owner of its telephone code. “We will administer this code, the server will be in Kosovo and the Kosovo Telecom will connect to the world using this server,” Mustafa said. He added that the International Telecommunications Union, and not Serbia, will give Kosovo its telephone code. “The ITU does not recognize Kosovo, but we have found the solution whereby Austria has applied on our behalf. There was no other solution,” he said.