Kosovo decision nears

Kosovo decision nears

PRISTINA (Reuters) - UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari will propose a settlement for Kosovo by November, after he won backing from the major powers to wind up Serb-Albanian talks, diplomatic sources said yesterday.
“You’re looking at November, but it could be earlier,” a senior Western official close to the process told Reuters after the major powers instructed Ahtisaari to produce his proposal.
A Kosovo government official said Ahtisaari, who has led talks between Serbia and Kosovo Albanians since February, would make his proposal “by the end of October at the latest”.
Meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, foreign ministers of the major Western powers and Russia gave Ahtisaari the green light to go to the next phase. They said “all possible efforts” should be made to reach a solution by the end of the year.
The timetable suggests the United States and its European allies have overcome Russian opposition to a strict deadline.
Moscow had backed Serb demands for a delay, but the statement issued after the meeting accused Belgrade of “obstruction.”
Diplomats say Ahtisaari will propose independence for the Albanian majority province, with safeguards for the Serb minority supervised by the EU and NATO.
The 16,000-strong NATO peace force said yesterday it had stepped up patrols after a spate of bomb attacks, including one on Tuesday that wounded four elderly Serbs.
Privately, UN officials in Kosovo have warned of a violent meltdown if a decision were delayed much longer. One senior UN official had told Reuters the mission would become “unmanageable” by spring 2007.
Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica appeared to portray the New York statement as a victory, thanking traditional Orthodox ally Russia for its steadfast support.
“In this historically important moment for Serbia, Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, advocate that international law must be respected, there can be no unilateral change of borders of sovereign states and that only an agreement accepted by both sides can be approved by the UN Security Council,” he told the state news agency.