UN: Uphill all the way on Kosovo

UN: Uphill all the way on Kosovo

PRISTINA (Reuters) - UN mediator Martti Ahtisaari said yesterday he was still “far from the moment” when a deal could be put to the Security Council on the future status of Kosovo but the target date remained year-end.
Completing a week-long visit to the UN-administered province, the former Finnish president said the process of trying to reconcile Albanian demands for independence with Serbia’s insistence on its sovereignty was like writing a book. “You do your first draft and you go through it. It may go through 10 or 20 drafts,” he told a news conference.
“There is no package going to be put in September to the Council. I think that’s premature,” he said. “We are far from the moment when I can start even thinking of putting things into that sort of form.” The envoy, named in February to seek a deal where diplomats fear none may be available, reiterated that “the timeframe that the Contact Group have had in mind... is this year.”
The Contact Group is made up of the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Germany and Russia. Diplomats say the Western powers believe Kosovo’s 90 percent Albanian majority should get the independence they claim, with a period of supervision.
Ahtisaari said he would go on talking “as long as we feel we are narrowing the gaps,” but added: “At the end of the day it may be that we have to come up with compromise proposals.” Talks have focused on the practical issues of running Kosovo once the United Nations leaves in 2007, such as protecting Serb Orthodox monasteries and letting Serbs run their own affairs.
In 1999, roughly half of Kosovo’s original Serb population of some 200,000 fled a wave of revenge attacks after the war.
Those who stayed lead a ghettoized existence, financially supported and politically guided by Belgrade.
Some 50,000 Serbs who live north of the Ibar river that runs through the divided city of Mitrovica enjoy greater freedom and have a clear land link to central Serbia.
Ahtisaari said that, despite appearances, the talks had indeed made some progress. “If I compare where we have been in the beginning of the process we have gone a long way,” he said.