Ethnic Albanian and Serbian leaders in unprecedented talks

Top Serbian and ethnic Albanian leaders met face-to-face in Vienna today in unprecedented talks aimed at resolving the dispute over the breakaway province of Kosovo. But with the two sides intractable, chances of a breakthrough are slim.

At issue is whether Kosovo will become independent, as demanded by its ethnic Albanian majority, or gain broad autonomy but remain within Serbia’s borders, as the Serb leadership insists.

The Serbian delegation is led by President Boris Tadic and Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, while the ethnic Albanian delegation includes President Fatmir Sejdiu and the province’s prime minister, Agim Ceku, as well as two opposition leaders.

The two 15-member delegations presented their positions behind closed doors but extracts were presented to the media. The mediators, led by UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari, were then expected to push the two sides into a discussion.

“Serbia will not accept another state to be created on 15% of its territory,” Kostunica said.

“The essential autonomy for Kosovo must be guaranteed and substantiated by a constitutional solution, which would be the result of a genuine constitutional agreement.”

“Maybe we will conclude today that we are far from agreement on Kosovo … but we must do everything to reach an agreement,” Tadic said.

Sejdiu said the will of the ethnic Albanian majority “cannot be ignored, or negotiated away in talks,” although he pledged to improve and protect the rights of the Serbs and other minorities living in the province.

“Independence is the alpha and omega, the beginning and end of our position,” he said.

Austrian chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel and Ursula Plassnik, Austria’s foreign minister, also were present at the start of the meeting, along with Western diplomats of the six-nation so-called Contact Group – the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Russia.

With the two groups so far apart, UN brokers for the talks set the expectations low, warning at the outset that no breakthrough was expected in Monday’s encounter.

“It would be naïve to believe that both sides will come to an agreement after this meeting,” said Hua Jiang, Ahtisaari’s spokeswoman.

Serbia claims Kosovo is the heart of its kingdom, while Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians argue Serbia has lost the right to govern it after its former leadership sparked a war in which an estimated 10,000 of their ethnic kin died.

Kosovo’s status was last formally discussed in 1999 at the height of the war that pitted Serbian troops loyal to former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic against ethnic Albanian separatists.

Those talks, held in France, ended with no results and led to a 78-day aerial bombardment by Nato war planes that forced an end to the Serb crackdown and left Serbia no choice but to relinquish control over Kosovo.

For the past seven years, the province has been a UN protectorate, patrolled by Nato troops. While violence has ebbed, the ethnic Albanian majority – 90% of the province’s two million population – and its Serbian minority remain deeply divided over the future.

The UN-brokered talks are aimed at steering the two sides toward a negotiated solution by the end of the year.