UN calls for "compromise solution" in Kosovo

ADN KRONOS INTERNATIONAL (ITALY) 24-Aug-05 15:53

Pristina, 24 August (AKI) - The next three to four months will be "crucial" for Kosovo, as talks on the final status of the Muslim-majority province - under UN control since 1999 - are likely to start before the end of this year, the United Nations' chief administrator in Kosovo, Soren Jessen Petersen said on Wednesday, calling for a "comprise solution" in the province. His remarks come just two days after the UN special envoy to Kosovo, Kai Eade, said he was "disappointed" over progress in implementing democratic and human rights standards there.

"If everything goes as planned, it is very likely that the status talks would begin before the end of the year", Petersen told journalists in Pristina. Eide will soon submit a report to the UN Security Council on the progress achieved in Kosovo multi-ethnic relations and the rule of law, and in implementing the international democratic and human rights standards which would be the basis for starting the talks.

Before that, Petersen emphasised, the provisional Kosovo government should concentrate on four key issues: implementation of these standards and improvement of the position of the province's minorities; decentralization of municipalities; and transfer of power from the UN administration to local authorities, and economic revival.

Kosovo ethnic Albanian-dominated government has made efforts to facilitate the return of refugees, Petersen said, adding that much more had to be done. Over 200,000 Serbs have fled Kosovo since 1999, but only 6,000 have returned so far.

Ethnic Albanians, who make a 1.7 million majority against remaining 80,000-100,000 Serbs, demand independence and have grown impatient over the length of time it is taking to decide on Kosovo's future status. The Serbian minority lives in separate areas watched over by peackeepers. Relations between the two groups remain tense, and clashes between Albanians and ethnic Serbs in March 2004 left 19 people dead.

Petersen said that Kosovo ethnic Albanian leaders and Serbian leaders in Belgrade should sit down at the negotiating table and seek a compromise solution for the province. "In Belgrade they say No to independence, in Pristina some say that nothing but independence is an option. They must sit down and come to a compromise solution," Petersen concluded.

Last October, Serbia's prime minister Vojislav Kostunica's government urged Kosovo Serbs to boycott parliamentary elections, because the international community had rejected his proposal to grant Serbs local self-rule, with their own police and administration.

The UN peackeeping force in Kosovo (UNMIK) and Kosovo's provisional government instead came up with am alternative plan, proposing a pilot program of ethnically mixed municipalities, which Serbs rejected.