In the six years since NATO bombers forced Yugoslav troops out of this troubled province, progress toward resolving the entrenched enmity here between Serbs and ethnic Albanians has been slow. The UN, which has been administering Kosovo, now wants to broker a deal and step aside.
The negotiations are bound to be painful. Serbs are determined to keep Kosovo, their religious heartland, while ethnic Albanians, who make up 90 percent of the population, demand independence after suffering years of ethnic violence that culminated in the 1998-1999 war.
In one unusual peacemaking effort, a group backed by the British government has brought together eight politicians from two opposing camps -- former Albanian guerrilla leaders on one side, and minority Kosovar Serbs on the other -- for some exercises in getting along.
The group was divided into pairs, an Albanian and a Serb in each. Every day began with 15 minutes of staring into each other's eyes. Then they performed exercises -- including climbing trees together and falling backward into each other's arms -- in which the former guerrilla commanders had to work hand in hand, literally, with their Serbian counterparts.
"We were trying to break their barriers down," said Scarlett MccGwire of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, the group that organized the meeting.
They wanted to challenge the participants to see one another not as "terrorist" or "oppressor," but as human beings, MccGwire said.
To a surprising degree, the effort worked.
Xhavit Haliti, a founding member of the Kosovo Liberation Army, attended the encounter and found himself won over.
"I would recommend it for all the party leaders," he said.
By the end of week, he said, he and his Serbian counterparts were going out to restaurants together and even shared a sauna.
But as successful as these exercises were, they also point to the tough road ahead in Kosovo, where the majority of each community still barely acknowledges the existence of the other.
Serbs face the possibility of living in an independent Albanian-dominated state. Diplomats say that if Albanians want to achieve anything like independence they will have to give the Serbs basic rights, such as freedom of movement, as well as the right of those refugees who fled the region to return from Serbia.
The framework for the negotiations is still far from clear. The UN has commissioned a report to study if and when talks can start. Despite some Russian and Chinese opposition within the Security Council, most diplomats expect the negotiations to begin by early October. The talks would involve local Albanian and Serb leaders as well as the Serbian government and representatives of the world's leading industrial democracies.
While many Western officials privately acknowledge that independence is perhaps the only solution that the Albanian population will accept, the Serbian government is hoping Kosovo will remain within Serbia, but be granted substantial autonomy.
Talks on Kosovo's final status are seen as inevitable. But UN and NATO officials have concluded that the longer negotiations are put off, the higher the risk for more unrest.
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