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Serbian, Albanian heads meet for last Kosovo talks

Top Serbian and ethnic Albanian leaders met for final talks over the future of Kosovo yesterday, deeply entrenched in their opposing views on how to solve the dispute over the province.

The two former enemies were scheduled to sit facing each other in what was expected to be the last meeting on a UN plan drafted by former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari aimed at settling the final dispute left from the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia.

In line with yearlong inconclusive talks, no breakthrough was expected in yesterday's session.

The proposal -- which has to be approved by the UN Security Council to come into effect -- was endorsed by ethnic Albanian leaders and vehemently rejected by Serbian officials, who argue it leads the province to eventual independence.

Those same views are to be tabled by Serbia's president and prime minister, Boris Tadic and Vojislav Kostunica, and their ethnic Albanian counterparts in Kosovo, Fatmir Sejdiu and Agim Ceku, participating in the UN-mediated talks.

Following yesterday's meeting, Ahtisaari was expected to submit his proposal later this month to the UN Security Council. But cracks over the future of the province have begun to appear there, too.

Officials in Kostunica's entourage said on Friday that the Serbian delegation planned to stay in Vienna just long enough to say a "historic no" to Ahtisaari and his vision.

In Belgrade, Tadic's office said he would make clear that the plan "opens the door" for Kosovo independence and as such is "unacceptable for Serbia."

Ethnic Albanian leaders urged the envoys to stick to the timetable.

"We believe there's no more time and space to change the substance of this proposal," Ceku said on Friday, adding that he expected the UN Security Council to approve a new resolution "that would give the chance for Kosovo to be an independent state and give other countries the chance to recognize Kosovo as independent."

Ethnic Albanian leaders, who demand independence from Serbia, have accepted the UN proposal, while Serbia rejected it, saying it gives virtual independence to the province they consider Serbia's historic heartland.

The UN plan envisages that Kosovo -- which has been a UN protectorate since the end of a 1998 to 1999 war between ethnic Albanian separatists and Serb forces -- be granted supervised statehood, with its own constitution, army, national anthem and flag.

In exchange, the plan would give the dwindling Serbian minority broad rights in running its daily affairs and preserving its culture in the province.

Western officials and observers fear that impatience is growing for independence and that tensions could plunge the territory back into violence.
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