UN envoy will give Serbs more time on Kosovo plan
Source: Reuters
By Evelyn Leopold UNITED NATIONS, Feb 8 (Reuters) - The U.N. mediator on Kosovo's future status said on Thursday he was willing to grant Serbia more time to consider his complex plan that most see as paving the way for the province's independence from Belgrade. But Martti Ahtisaari, a former Finnish president, told a news conference he still expected to present his final proposal to the 15-member U.N. Security Council, which has to agree to the plan, before the end of March. Ahtisaari said he would go to Brussels over the weekend to brief European Union foreign ministers on Monday, a day before he meets all parties in Vienna. "I am willing to integrate compromise solutions that the parties might reach," Ahtisaari said after briefing U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. "I want to give both parties the chance once again to make their points." Serbia's leaders, including Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, are against Kosovo ever becoming independent and want a 10-day delay in the talks. Russia, a member of the Security Council with veto power, backs Serbia. "I keep hearing that Belgrade may need a bit more time to go through the process in Serbia and that its parliament would have to appoint a new negotiating team," Ahtisaari said. He said he would agree to "a week or 10 days" but still intended to present his final plan to the Security Council sometime in March. Kosovo has been under U.N. administration since 1999, when NATO launched bombing raids to stop Serb forces from driving out the province's ethnic Albanians, who comprise 90 percent of the population. Ahtisaari's plan on the province's future is another chapter, perhaps the final one, of the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Ahtisaari studiously avoided using the word independence. But provisions of the plan, released earlier this month, call for de facto statehood, including an army, a constitution, a flag and membership in international institutions, especially financial ones to help with Kosovo's devastated economy. "The final plan will be clarified" in the proposal to the Security Council, he said. "It will be a very clear statement of what the status will be." However, Ahtisaari allowed himself to say that Serbs and Kosovars see "this package as independence which will be supervised by the international community." He said he attempted to assure Serbs living in Kosovo last Friday that two-thirds of his plan provides for protection of their communities and of cultural sites. But he said only one moderate group joined him while others had voiced objections elsewhere apparently "without reading the document." Under the plan Serbs and other minorities also would be guaranteed seats in Kosovo's parliament. Diplomats said a meeting of the six-power Contact Group on Kosovo, which was tentatively scheduled for the weekend, would not be held and a new date had not been set. The group is compromises Russia, the United States, Britain, France, Italy, and Germany, which holds the current EU presidency.
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