Western nations are working on a compromise UN resolution on Kosovo that would give ethnic Albanians and Serbs four months to reach agreement on the province's future status -- but it would not automatically trigger a route to independence if talks fail, UN dip-lomats said on Tuesday.
The new text would address one of Russia's major objections to the current draft resolution before the UN Security Council, but it would almost certainly anger Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, who comprise 90 percent of the province's 2 million population and have been clamoring for independence.
The current text calls for four months of negotiations between the two sides with an automatic road to independence if there is no agreement, unless the Security Council decided otherwise.
Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin called that draft "unacceptable" for a number of reasons including that with the carrot of independence dangling after four months, the Kosovo Albanians would not engage in serious negotiations.
With Russia refusing to even discuss the current text, and hinting strongly at a veto if it is put to a vote, the resolution's Western sponsors have been working on a new text that could win Security Council approval.
"We have to make every effort to get ... to an acceptable compromise solution," Italy's UN Ambassador Marcello Spatafora said.
He said the sponsors of the resolution -- the council's EU members including Italy and the US -- want serious negotiations between Kosovo's majority ethnic Albanians and minority Serbs with "no pre-set result."
While Kosovo remains a province of Serbia, it has been under UN and NATO administration since a 78-day NATO-led air war that halted a Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in 1999.
In April, UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari recommended that Kosovo be granted internationally supervised independence -- a proposal strongly supported by its ethnic Albanians but vehemently rejected by its Serb minority, Serbia, and Russia, which has close cultural and religious ties to the Serbs.
Speaking in Kyrgyzstan, on Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, "Any solution is possible on the basis of agreement by both sides involved. Any other decision cannot make it through the Security Council."
A revised Kosovo resolution is expected to be circulated later this week.
US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters Monday that "the next week, 10 days, is a decisive period with regard to the Security Council's role in making a decision on this issue."
But Khalilzad warned Monday that "not dealing with this issue can worsen the situation -- and a problem of Kosovo, if unattended, is a potential threat to peace and security of Europe."
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who supports the Ahtisaari plan, warned Tuesday in Brussels that further delays in resolving Kosovo's future could lead to violence in the Serbian province and elsewhere in the region. He appealed to the parties not to "take any unilateral moves."
There is widespread concern in the Security Council and the region that the province's ethnic Albanian leaders could declare independence unilaterally if the council does not approve a path to independence.
Russia and China are also concerned that having the Security Council grant independence to a province of a sovereign country would set a dangerous precedent. The Americans and Europeans insist Kosovo is "a special case" because of Yugoslavia's violent breakup.
When Spatafora was asked how the positions of Kosovo's Serbs and Albanians can ever be reconciled since the constitution of Serbia prevents giving up any territory, the Italian ambassador stressed that "the wider picture for everybody in the area is the European anchorage and European perspective."
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