A draft resolution to be circulated at the UN has called for a further 120 days of talks between Serbs and ethnic Albanians over the future status of Kosova.

Below is an article published by the News:

Western powers have drafted a new UN resolution on Serbia’s breakaway Kosovo province calling for another 120 days of talks between Serbs and ethnic Albanians, a Kosovo newspaper reported on Saturday [16 June 2007].

Citing a Western diplomat, the daily Zeri said the draft text would be forwarded to Russia on Monday and could be formally circulated at the United Nations mid-week.

Serbian ally Russia has blocked a Western-backed resolution which would clear the decks for a declaration of independence by Kosovo’s 90 per cent Albanian majority. The revised text invites Serbia and the Kosovo Albanians to hold fresh talks, on top of 13 months of dialogue that ended in stalemate in March, Zeri reports.

If they again fail to agree on the fate of the UN-run territory after four months, a blueprint drafted by UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari and calling for independence supervised by the European Union would automatically take effect.

The report appeared to be in line with remarks by the US Kosovo envoy, Frank Wisner, in Pristina on Friday [15 June 2007]. Wisner said the West was considering a resolution that would include a further “time-limited” period of dialogue, but with independence the only outcome. The aim, he said, was “not to delay what the outcome has to be, but to make it clear to the world that every avenue was pursued.”

The province of 2 million people has been run by the United Nations since 1999, when Nato bombs drove out Serb forces accused of killing and expelling Albanians in a two-year war with separatist guerrillas. An estimated 10,000 people died, the vast majority Albanians.

The United States and its European allies, who together lead 16,000 Nato troops in Kosovo, see independence as the only way to guarantee stability in the Balkans.

Serbia on Friday rejected the idea of holding further talks conditioned on independence being the outcome, as proposed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy at this month’s G-8 summit. It was unclear whether the latest draft resolution would satisfy Moscow.