Four hurt in market bomb ahead of Kosovo talks

Reuters, 17 Nov 2005 16:20:45 GMT By Matthew Robinson

 

PRISTINA, Serbia and Montenegro, Nov 17 (Reuters) - A bomb exploded under a truck at a busy market in Kosovo on Thursday, injuring three Serbs and one ethnic Albanian ahead of talks to decide the fate of Serbia's breakaway province.

 

The mid-morning blast in the mainly Serb town of Strpce was the fifth attack since August in the area, a southern pocket of the U.N.-run province close to the Macedonia border.

 

U.N. police commissioner Kai Vittrup described the attacks as "criminal, terror acts directed by those who want to impose their solution on final status".

 

United Nations envoy Martti Ahtisaari is due in Kosovo on Monday for what he says will be a long, tough shuttle diplomacy mission to determine if Kosovo's 90-percent ethnic Albanian majority get independence or Serbia retains sovereignty.

 

U.N. officials and Western diplomats have warned of an possible upsurge in violence as Kosovo enters talks that are seen by many Albanians as unnecessary and insulting.

 

The Strpce market serves both Serbs and Albanians.

 

"One person is badly wounded but it is not life-threatening," police spokesman Agim Demiri told Reuters. The Serb mayor of the town said the three Serbs were all teenage boys.

 

Legally part of Serbia, Kosovo has been run by the United Nations since 1999, when NATO bombing forced out Serb forces accused of killing 10,000 ethnic Albanians civilians in a two-year war with separatist guerrillas.

 

"NON-NEGOTIABLE"

 

Kosovo Serbs, many living in isolated enclaves, have been the target of sporadic violence since the war, under the gaze of 17,000 NATO-led peacekeepers. Strpce is within the U.S. military's command zone.

 

Serbia opposes independence for the mountain-ringed province, home to scores of centuries-old Serb Orthodox religious sites and the so-called cradle of the Serb nation.

 

Building on a growing sense of entrenchment, the Kosovo parliament on Thursday adopted a platform for its negotiating team that declared independence "non-negotiable".

 

A similar resolution agreed by the Serbian government on Tuesday rejected the possibility of "unilateral secession" as a violation of international law, Belgrade's central argument against the creation of a separate Kosovo state.

 

Ahtisaari will begin his mission to reconcile these diametrically opposed positions by first shuttling through Balkan capitals next week, starting with Pristina.

 

Analysts say sporadic bomb blasts and shootings in Kosovo, often targeting U.N. vehicles or facilities, are part of a campaign to warn the U.N. Security Council against delaying a decision on "final status" or compromising on independence.

 

Diplomats say Western powers will steer the talks towards a form of independence under continued international supervision, particularly over minority rights and security. (Additional reporting by Shaban Buza and Branislav Krstic)