Kosova: Last Round of Talks
With the international community exerting pressure for an agreement as the UN deadline is approaching, leaders of
Kosovo ethnic Albanian and Serb leaders were due to on Monday [26 November 2007] to begin three days of high-levels talks in the Austrian spa town of
“We have come here with best intentions to negotiate with the delegation of Kosovo Albanians to reach a mutually acceptable solution which would secure peace and stability,”
“The ball is now in the court of the Kosovo Albanians,” Tadic added.
Serb and ethnic Albanian negotiators have remained deadlocked over Kosovo's future status in over a year of internationally mediated talks.
Majority ethnic Albanians insist they will accept nothing short of independence.
The
It is the final meeting in the current round of talks.
The international mediating 'troika' made up of United States, European Union and Russian diplomats, has asked both delegations not to make any statements until the meeting is over.
The troika, comprising US diplomat Frank Wiesner, the European Union’s Wolfgang Ischinger and Russia’s Aleksandar Bocan Harcenko, has mediated a fresh round of talks in recent months aimed at hammering out an agreement, but have failed to achieve any progress.
The
Responding to ethnic Albanian threats to declare independence unilaterally after 10 December [2007], Serbian leaders have said they would declare this “null and void”.
The
“Pristina is going to the last meeting with a clear vision and will once again present its stance on relations between
The European Union is still divided on the issue of Kosovo independence, but former US envoy for the Balkans, Richard Holbrooke, said this week that Washington and most EU countries would recognise Kosovo after 10 December[2007].
“A few weeks later, Kosovo government will proclaim long awaited independence” and it will have the support of
Kosovo has been under UN control since 1999 when NATO airstrikes in 1999 drove out Serbian troops from Kosovo amid ethnic fighting and gross human rights abuses during a two-year war with guerrillas.
Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled to