Top UN official postpones local elections in Kosovo

Associated Press, Friday, June 16, 2006 1:38 PM

PRISTINA, Serbia-The top U.N. official in Kosovo on Friday postponed local elections for up to twelve months, citing the need to focus on talks on the final status of the disputed province.

Soren Jessen-Petersen, the outgoing U.N. administrator in charge of running the province, said elections to choose municipal authorities scheduled for this fall "shall be held not earlier than three months and no later than six months" after the U.N. Security Council issues a formal decision on Kosovo's future status.

Such decision is expected by the end of the year.

"I am convinced that the decision to postpone the elections serves the best interests of all communities in Kosovo," Jessen-Petersen said in a statement.

"The postponement will allow for the political focus on the status talks to be retained," he said.

Kosovo, formally a province of Serbia, has been administered by the United Nations since NATO's 1999 air war forced Serb forces to end a crackdown on separatist ethnic Albanians and to relinquish control over the region.

Talks to determine Kosovo's future, whether it becomes an independent state or remains attached to Serbia, are under way and are aimed at steering the two sides toward settling the province's status by the end of the year.

Ethnic Albanians in Kosovo insist on full independence, while the minority Serbs and Belgrade want the province to remain within Serbia.

The decision "foresees that municipal elections scheduled to be held in 2006 shall be postponed for a period not exceeding twelve months," the U.N. statement said.

The move followed months of consultations between the U.N. officials and Kosovo's fragmented political scene.

Opposition parties insisted status talks should not hold up the vote and expressed concern that the uncertainty over when it would be held could lead to an open-ended delay of the elections.

Jessen-Petersen, who holds the ultimate power over decision-making in the province, said those concerns were addressed "by the establishment of a concrete timeframe for the postponement."