UN envoy to issue brief on plan for Kosovo's future

A UN envoy was briefing the US, Russia and key European allies in Austria today on his proposal for the future of Serbia’s independence-minded province of Kosovo.

Martti Ahtisaari, a former Finnish president who led months of negotiations between Serbian leaders and representatives from Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority, was presenting the plan at the UN complex in Vienna to members of the so-called Contact Group – the US, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and Italy.

Ahtisaari’s spokesman, Remi Dourlot, said the Contact Group diplomats “will take the document to their capitals for further review”.

Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority is pushing for outright independence from Serbia, while Serbian leaders and the province’s Serb minority want it to remain within Serbia’s borders.

But diplomats and officials who have agreed to discuss the proposal say it likely will not mention the word independence. However, it is expected to give Kosovo some attributes of a sovereign state, such as access to international institutions and provisions for a security force.

The province has been under UN control since mid-1999 – when Nato airstrikes ended former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic’s brutal crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists – and is currently patrolled by a 16,000-strong Nato-led peacekeeping force.

Ahtisaari said his plan focused on the protection of Kosovo’s small Serbian minority and envisages a strong international presence backed up by the Nato peacekeepers.

International mediators have held yearlong talks between ethnic Albanian and Serbian leaders on issues such as giving self-rule to Serbs in areas where they form a majority, protecting their religious and cultural monuments and offering them constitutional guarantees so they are not overruled.

Ahtisaari plans to formally present the proposal to ethnic Albanians and Serbs on February 2 during visits to Serbia’s capital, Belgrade, and Kosovo’s provincial capital, Pristina.

Diplomats have said the plan also outlines post-status international supervision, with the European Union’s top envoy in Kosovo likely to have veto power over laws and government decisions and the authority to fire officials who go against the peace deal.

“The document offers substantial protection of minority rights,” said a diplomat close to the talks.

“We are hoping that the two sides will not make any hasty moves or jump to conclusions,” the official said.

Oliver Ivanovic, a moderate Kosovo Serb leader from the ethnically divided city of Kosovska Mitrovica, said he was briefed earlier on key elements of the plan. He told The Associated Press it offered Serbs “a separate assembly, an association of municipalities and the right to maintain special ties with Serbia”.

“We will have special rights in security, health services, education and cultural matters. Local bodies will have the right to nominate local police chiefs, judges and prosecutors,” he said.

“There will be a major decentralisation of Kosovo with a large number of Serb-majority municipalities – at least seven. These municipalities will be sustainable in every sense as they will have industries and will be able to facilitate the return of refugees,” Ivanovic said.

He said Kosovska Mitrovica – long a flashpoint where ethnic tensions have boiled over into occasional violence – would retain its status as a city but would be administratively split into a predominantly ethnic Albanian south side and a mainly Serb north.

The plan for Kosovo would be similar to the Dayton peace accords that ended Bosnia’s 1992-95 war and established an international administrator to oversee its day-to-day affairs.

The UN Security Council will have to approve the plan, which officials say may undergo minor changes after being reviewed by Serbian and ethnic Albanian leaders.

That has raised the possibility of a showdown between the US, which backs the province’s independence drive, and Russia, a long-time ally of Serbia, which considers Kosovo the heart of its ancient homeland.

“Serbs cannot accept any form of Kosovo’s independence and that will be a problem within the international community,” said Ivanovic, the Kosovo Serb leader.