UN's Ahtisaari outlines Kosovo's path to statehood
02 Feb 2007 10:43:22 GMT Source: Reuters
(Adds background) BELGRADE, Feb 2 (Reuters) - United Nations envoy Martti Ahtisaari said on Friday Serbs and ethnic Albanians had 'one more chance' for a compromise in talks this month on the future status of Serbia's breakaway Kosovo province. "The positions of the parties are extremely fixed ... we are giving (them) one more chance" in the month of February, he told a news conference in Belgrade. Ahtisaari presented Serb President Boris Tadic with a proposal giving Kosovo the right to access international institutions, but said it would continue to be supervised internationally and patrolled by NATO. The former Finnish president mediated months of largely fruitless talks in 2006 in search of a compromise between Serbia and leaders of Kosovo's 90 percent Albanian majority. Ahtisaari will also present his plan in Kosovo's capital Pristina, where leaders of the 90 percent Albanian majority have long pressed for full independence. Kosovo has been run by the U.N. since 1999 when 11 weeks of bombing by NATO forced the late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw his forces, accused of killing 10,000 Albanians during a counter-insurgency war.
