Serbs warn of partition if Kosovo wins statehood

29 Mar 2006 13:37:26 GMT

Source: Reuters
By Branislav Krstic

"No one can force us to accept institutions in Pristina that are unfriendly towards the Serb people," said Ristic, mayor of Zubin Potok, one of three Serb-dominated municipalities in the north bordering Serbia proper. ZVECAN, Serbia and Montenegro, March 29 (Reuters) - Serbs in northern Kosovo warned the United Nations on Wednesday the province would split in two if the Albanian majority clinches independence in talks this year. "Serbs are not in favour of partition but it will come to that if the international community accepts the Albanian ultimatum and Kosovo becomes independent," Serb mayor Slavisa Ristic told reporters after meeting U.N. envoy Albert Rohan in the northern town of Zvecan. Rohan is the Austrian deputy to Martti Ahtisaari, who is leading negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo Albanians in Vienna on the fate of the disputed province, run by the United Nations since the 1998-99 war. The major powers setting international policy on Kosovo have ruled out partition, but as the West makes increasingly clear its preference for independence, the 100,000 remaining Serbs are pushing to distance themselves as far as possible from the Albanian-dominated authorities in the capital Pristina. Asked if the north could win some form of autonomy in the future, Rohan replied: "No". Serbia lost control of Kosovo in 1999, when NATO bombed to drive out Serb forces accused of atrocities against ethnic Albanian civilians in a 2-year war with separatist guerrillas. The United Nations took control, but about half the Serb population fled a wave of revenge attacks. Seven years later, Serbs and Albanians remain divided, watched over by 17,500 NATO-led peacekeepers. Hours before Rohan's visit, U.N. police closed the bridge in the nearby town of Mitrovica after a group of Albanians on Tuesday made a rare foray across the river into the Serb-dominated north and stabbed a Serb man. Of the Serbs who stayed after the war, those in the north enjoy a natural land link to central Serbia. The rest live in scattered enclaves, targeted by sporadic violence. Serbia wants the creation of a Serb entity, if possible within an autonomous Kosovo. But partition is a taboo concept among Western powers, with the threat of forced population movements or a repeat of the dysfunctional ethnic carve-up seen in Bosnia. In negotiations which resume on April 3, Ahtisaari is pushing the Albanians to give Serbs enough local powers for a viable future in an independent Kosovo, stopping short of autonomy or partition.

CRISIS PROFILE: Can Kosovo put violence behind it?

04 Apr 2005 00:00:00 GMT

Source: AlertNet - background material
By Ruth Gidley
Kosovo’s sovereignty status has been in limbo since 1999, when Belgrade lost control of the Serbian province after a 78-day NATO bombing campaign and the United Nations took over administration. Kosovo’s 90 percent ethnic Albanian majority wants full independence, which Serbia is reluctant to grant. Tension has been heightened by the March 2005 indictment for war crimes of Kosovo’s prime minister, Ramush Haradinaj, a former guerrilla leader considered by many Albanians a national hero. The international community is due to review Kosovo’s status in 2005, and some experts say this is a make or break year, warning that simmering tension could escalate into more deadly violence. What’s the tension about? Kosovo’s Albanian population – mostly Muslims – want total independence from Serbia and Montenegro. Since the end of the 1999, there has been a backlash against Serbs by Albanian extremists angry at Serbian repression during the civil war that engulfed the Balkans in the 1990s. Sporadic vicious attacks have been reported against Serbs with the budding of spring, raising the spectre of a repeat of March 2004, when 19 died and hundreds of Serb homes and churches were torched in riots. The post-war backlash has also hit Roma and other minorities, whom some Albanians accuse of having opposed their liberation from Serb rule. As a result, many minorities live under virtual siege – as in the northern half of the northern town of Mitrovica, which is a Serb haven protected by NATO-led Kosovo Forces (KFOR). Both sides feel and act like victims, and in a way, both sides are. Ethnic Albanians have long felt downtrodden by Serb rule and were heavily targeted in the late 1990s during the latter part of Slobodan Milosevic’s government of Yugoslavia. In the absence of any clear signal that the international community will not allow a return to Serbian rule, many Albanians fear that Serbia - which has for centuries seen Kosovo as a key landmark of Serbian nationalism – will not let the province go quietly. Some Albanian extremists think that by fomenting violence they can force the international community to hurry up and give them sovereignty, analysts say. Kosovo’s Serbs, meanwhile, feel the international community has placed little value on their lives and has failed to protect them from attacks. Who’s actually in charge at the moment? The head of the U.N. Mission in Kosovo is the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Kosovo. A Danish official, Soren Jessen-Petersen, has been in that role since July 2004. Ethnic Albanians have elected a president and prime minister, who lead the so-called Provisional Institutions of Self Government. What are the options for the future? Some kind of legal acknowledgement of Kosovo’s independence is what most people mean when they talk about Kosovo’s “final status”. Belgian-based think tank International Crisis Group argues that this is the only viable solution, and that the international community needs to act decisively to make it happen. What about letting Serb areas stay part of Serbia? Another option is to carve up Kosovo and separate Serb-majority areas, in a kind of partition along the lines of the Serb Republic in Bosnia, an enclave of Bosnian Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In Kosovo, former Prime Minister Haradinaj granted partial autonomy to some Serb-majority areas. Given his reputation for taking a hard line against Serbs and Roma while he was a military leader – he is being charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) with rape and murder - Haradinaj turned out to be a surprisingly astute and generous politician. But partition may not be a realistic solution, since many Serbs live in isolated areas in central Kosovo rather than a single, easily delineated region on the periphery. Why can’t things just stay as they are? The U.N. Mission in Kosovo mandate has no expiry date but the international community is due to judge Kosovo’s progress against a set of standards in mid-2005. Kosovo’s Albanian population will be looking to that deadline with high hopes the international community will legalise Kosovo’s national status. These hopes are fed by the deteriorating economic situation in the U.N. protectorate, with unemployment around 60 percent and numerous villages disconnected from the power grid for non-payment of bills. What do Kosovo Serbs want to happen? There isn’t really a Serb political movement separate from Belgrade. Kosovo’s Serb population obeyed Belgrade’s urges to boycott elections in 2004. Some want to remain part of Mother Serbia, some favour partition, but most just want peace. And what does Serbia want? If Kosovo Albanians continue to lash out against minorities, some analysts say there’s a risk Belgrade’s armed forces could step in to protect Kosovo Serbs, even though politicians don’t really want the drain on their resources and many Serbs in Serbia look down on Kosovan Serbs as backwards peasants. “Since the 17-18 March 2004 riots, many high-ranking (Serbian) officers have begun preparations to re-enter the province in the event of further violence,” International Crisis group said in a January 2005 report entitled “Kosovo: Toward Final Status”. “Few politicians would be willing to stand up to them.” On the other hand, Belgrade wants to move forward towards the holy grail of membership of the European Union, with its promise of prosperity and opportunity. Any impasse over Kosovo could make that goal harder to achieve. Why is Kosovo so symbolically important to Serb nationalists? It was the birthplace of a Serbian state in the 14th century, lost to the Muslim Ottoman Empire in 1389. Serbia regained control of Kosovo in 1913. Kosovo was granted wide-ranging autonomous powers from the 1960s during President Tito’s government, with de facto self-government from 1974, but pressure for full independence built up after Tito’s death in 1980. After the break-up of Yugoslavia, Serb nationalist Slobodan Milosevic whipped up hostility towards Kosovo’s Albanians in order to score popularity points in Serbia proper. Milosevic and four other top officials are charged by the ICTY in The Hague with responsibility for the deportation of 740,000 Kosovo Albanians and the murder of 340 Kosovo Albanians. What does the international community want? The international community’s main yardsticks for deciding if Kosovo is ready for independence are whether treatment of minorities is up to scratch and whether it has made progress building national institutions. Major international players say Kosovo can’t go back to being the way it was before 1999, but they’ve generally stopped short of publicly saying they really are going to support independence. Some analysts say this is a vicious circle – the international community says it won’t grant independence until ethnic Albanians protect Serbs and Roma, but Albanians will likely remain resentful of minorities until they know independence is guaranteed. Russia is the one country that openly backs the Serb position, but International Crisis Group argues that the rest of the world should push for independence even if Belgrade and Moscow refuse. Is Kosovo viable as an independent state? That’s a very important question. Whatever the outcome, Kosovo will probably need large amounts of international aid for the foreseeable future. Tell me more about Haradinaj and his indictment for war crimes. Ramush Haradinaj was commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which grew out of an ethnic Albanian independence movement that had been gaining strength since the early 1990s. The KLA stepped up its attacks in the mid-90s, leading to a major crackdown from the Yugoslav military. Haradinaj is charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia with murder, rape and the deportation of civilians. He was replaced as prime minister of the interim government in March 2005 by former student activist Bajram Kosumi. Why did NATO bomb Kosovo and Serbia? To answer this contentious question, let’s go back a bit. In 1989, Serbian President Milosevic revoked Kosovo’s autonomous status. Ethnic Albanian leaders claimed independence the following year and fighting between the Albanian nationalist Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and Serb forces broke out in 1998. That proved a trigger for increased Serbian repression of Albanian civilians. Milosevic, then president of Yugoslavia, rejected the terms of an internationally brokered peace agreement that stipulated that NATO would be the only force stationed in Kosovo and that NATO troops would be deployed throughout the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In 1999, NATO bombed Kosovo and Serbia, without U.N. approval. Supporters of the air strikes said they were needed to stop Serbian repression of ethnic Albanians. NATO's intervention in Kosovo was supported by many aid workers, especially those who had witnessed the bloody 1992-1995 war and its aftermath in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the Bosnian context, they felt that Muslims had suffered disproportionately and that Serbs had committed more war crimes than other groups, so they thought NATO’s action would prevent more ethnic cleansing. Opponents accused NATO of double standards – for failing to intervene in other humanitarian crises – and said the United States in particular had strategic reasons for wanting to participate in a war in Europe, not least to justify the existence of NATO itself. Meanwhile, Serbian forces stepped up attacks on Kosovo Albanians and about 800,000 fled to Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro. Most returned after the war. When Milosevic capitulated, about 200,000 Serbs fled, the NATO-led Kosovo Forces were deployed and the U.N. Mission in Kosovo took control. What hope if there for a peaceful outcome? It’s not impossible. Slavic peoples – like Serbs -- and Albanians have lived together in Kosovo since the 8th century. In fact, International Crisis Group research shows that some people in areas that experienced heavy losses in 1999 are quite willing to live on peaceful terms with their former neighbours from other ethnic groups.

INTERVIEW-UN could face new role in northern Kosovo

19 Apr 2006 14:39:42 GMT
MITROVICA, Serbia and Montenegro, April 19 (Reuters) - The United Nations may have to extend its stay in Kosovo after a decision on an Albanian demand for independence to oversee a peaceful transition in the Serb-dominated north, a U.N. official said on Wednesday. Gerard Gallucci, the top U.N. official in the flashpoint town of Mitrovica, said an international presence would help "coordinate relations" between Serbs in the north and the ethnic Albanian authorities in Pristina, which will run Kosovo whatever the outcome of negotiations under way in Vienna on the future of the Serbian province. "Everyone now understands there has to be a transitional period in which the international community -- even though it may be getting out of a U.N. role south of the Ibar River -- may continue to play some similar role in the north for some period of time," the American diplomat told Reuters in an interview. "I think the U.N. may be best equipped to play this role," he said from his office which overlooks the Ibar river dividing the town's Serbs and Albanians since a war in 1998-99 in which 10,000 Albanians were killed. Diplomats say the Serbian province of 2 million people, run by the United Nations since 1999, will likely win independence in U.N.-led talks set to end later this year. The main U.N. mission will bow out once a deal is in place and will be replaced by a slimmed-down European Union operation. But at least half Kosovo's 100,000 remaining Serbs hold sway in north Mitrovica and the rocky strip of land that runs up to central Serbia. They reject the idea of being ruled from Pristina and have resisted successive U.N. efforts to reintegrate them with the rest of Kosovo. EXODUS The major powers say splitting the province in two, as some Serbs advocate, is not an option. They are pushing Albanians to give Serbs greater local self-government, perhaps heading off the mass exodus Serbs threaten should Kosovo split from Serbia. Gallucci said the international community recognised the "different reality" in northern Kosovo. Serbs enjoy a level of freedom there envied by thousands of Serbs living in scattered enclaves south of the Ibar, the target of sporadic violence. Around half the Serb population fled a wave of revenge attacks after the war. Gallucci said some kind of international presence would have to help monitor, administer and coordinate relations between the north and Pristina during a period of transition. The United Nations has the experience for the job and the EU may have "its hands full with the security and justice role Kosovo-wide". "It makes sense there be some person overall with some degree of responsibility for the north, whether that person be free-standing or part of a larger mission," said Gallucci. Mitrovica, a shadow of a once thriving mining town, has come to symbolise the ethnic division which still plagues Kosovo, seven years after NATO expelled Serb forces accused of atrocities against Albanian civilians in its war with separatist guerrillas. Divided by the Ibar River and patrolled by French NATO troops, Mitrovica is dominated by Serbs in the north and Albanians in the south. For Serbs, the north represents their last urban centre, linking them to the rest of Serbia. The Albanians say it is the frontline of a Serb bid to divide Kosovo, which Serbs have considered their religious heartland for the past 1,000 years. Recent moves suggest both sides are edging towards dividing the running of the city. "You have two incompatible views of Kosovo which then come down to incompatible views of Mitrovica," said Gallucci.

Kosovo Albanian crime suspect visits army

Apr. 13, 2006

Former Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj, who faces war crime charges, has told the Kosovo Protection Corps they will be the army of an independent Kosovo.
Haradinaj once headed Kosovo's Liberation Army that fought security forces of the late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic.
On a visit to the Protection Corps, the Liberation Army's successor, in Pristina Haradinaj said he believed once Kosovo gained independence from Serbia the Kosovo Protection Corps will become "Kosovo's modern army," the KosovaLive agency said.
Early this year, Haradinaj was charged with war crimes by the U.N. tribunal in The Hague, but was permitted remain involved in politics as head of the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo party while on provisional liberty before he goes on trial. He served as prime minister in 2004 and 2005.
Formally, Kosovo is part of Serbia but it has been ruled by the U.N. mission since 1999, when NATO air attacks drove out Milosevic's troops.
Talks have been conducted to decide who will govern Kosovo once NATO and the U.N. mission leave the province, whose population is 90 percent ethnic Albanian.

United Press International

Eurovision hits a serious note

By Tim Judah BBC Radio 4's Crossing Continents

Choosing a song for Europe may be a frivolous affair for some countries, but in the Balkans it is a sensitive matter which can have serious consequences.

Serbia-Montenegro withdrew after a row over its contest to find a song

Let's face it. Most of Europe doesn't take it very seriously.

But as Aleksandar Tijanic, the powerful head of Serbian Television, reminded me: "It is difficult to understand if you don't understand the Balkans."

We are talking about the Eurovision Song Contest of course.

The first took place in Switzerland in 1956 and only eight countries took part.

Britain, Austria and Denmark were not represented because they failed to get their applications in on time.

What a difference half a century makes.

This year 37 countries will be jostling for the prize in Athens on 20 May and four of them, Macedonia, Bosnia, Croatia and Slovenia, will be ex-Yugoslav states who take the contest very seriously indeed.

And next year there could be three more of them: Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo.

Balkan odyssey

I began my Balkan Eurovision odyssey in Kosovo. The reason that they in particular take the contest so seriously is because they are not going.

Technically, Kosovo is a province of Serbia.

In fact, ever since the end of the war here in 1999, it has been under UN jurisdiction with security provided by Nato-led forces.

Kosovo has a population of some two million people, more than 90% of whom are ethnic Albanians.

They have consistently demanded independence, but this has been fiercely resisted by Serbia, which regards it as the cradle of its civilisation.

Some 100,000 Serbs remain in Kosovo, mostly scattered across the province in enclaves.

Rank treachery?

In theory, Kosovo Albanian bands could compete in Eurovision under the flag of Serbia and Montenegro.

Flakareshat would rather compete for an independent Kosovo

In reality, they would never be chosen and besides, no Kosovo Albanian would ever consider doing such a thing, which would be considered rank treachery by fellow Albanians.

So for the last few years, Kosovo Albanian groups such as energetic girl-band Flakareshat have gone to Tirana, the capital of Albania, to compete.

If they had ever won, they would have competed under the flag of Albania.

But no band from Kosovo has been chosen. Yet another reason, say Kosovo Albanians, why it needs independence.

In fact, talks have started on the future of Kosovo and it is quite likely that, despite resistance from Serbia, Kosovo will be independent in time for the Eurovision song contest in 2007.

Political points

Over the mountains to the West is Kosovo's neighbour, Montenegro.

Montenegrin band No Name won for the second time this year

In theory, this tiny republic of some 672,000 people is linked in a loose federation with Serbia.

In last year's Eurovision contest, a boy band called No Name represented the joint state in Kiev.

Much to the irritation of Serbs though, No Name draped themselves in the flag of Montenegro, not Serbia and Montenegro.

The Serbs thought that the band were abusing the contest to score political points.

In the Balkans it was understood that sporting the Montenegrin flag meant supporting independence from Serbia.

There was no political motivation Milica Belevic, Montenegrin judge

This year the contest to choose a band from Serbia and Montenegro took place in Belgrade on 11 March.

A few hours earlier the former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic had been found dead in his cell at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague.

When No Name won for the second year, the Serbs in the audience went berserk. They began chucking bottles at No Name and screaming: "Thieves! Thieves!"

"There was no political motivation," said Milica Belevic, one of the Montenegrin judges.

It is a claim that is widely disbelieved in Serbia.

Independence vote

As far as the Serbs were concerned the Montenegrins were desperate to get their boys back on stage in Athens strutting their stuff and flying the flag for Montenegro.

Montenegro is gearing up for a referendum on 21 May

Why the desperation? Less than 12 hours after the Eurovision contest, the polls open in Montenegro for a very different form of competition.

On 21 May, Montenegrins are set to vote in a referendum on independence from Serbia.

The Belgrade battle of Eurovision means that this year Serbia and Montenegro has had to withdraw from the contest.

Next year, depending on what happens in the referendum, they might be competing as separate states.

"Yugoslavia was divided with guns," laughed Sabrija Vulic of Montenegrin Television, "and Serbia and Montenegro will be divided by songs!"

In neighbouring Bosnia they will not actually say they are happy that Serbia and Montenegro have been forced to drop out of the contest but they are not exactly shedding tears about it either.

It means that the pool of potential votes for Bosnia has risen by several million.

Shrewd choice

Bosnia has chosen Hari - and his band Hari Mata Hari - to sing for them in Athens this year.

It's very important for morale, that at last we win here! Hari Mata Hari, Bosnian entry

It is shrewd choice. Hari was well known before Yugoslavia descended into war in the 1990s and he is still popular across the region.

The Eurovision Song Contest website calls Hari "the nightingale of Sarajevo". He told me he was "the nightingale of the galaxy".

But behind the humour, there is a steely determination to win.

Hari says that ever since the end of the war in Bosnia more than 10 years ago, Bosnians have felt as though they were "losing".

So, he says, "it's very important for morale, that at last we win here!"

And Hari is leaving nothing to chance.

He has already started a gruelling promotional tour across the former Yugoslavia and in parts of the rest of Europe with a significant diaspora from the former Yugoslavia.

Bosnia and Serbia may be slugging it out these days at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, where Bosnia is pursuing its claim that Serbia tried to commit genocide in Bosnia, but none of that is going to stop former Yugoslavs voting for one another in Athens on 20 May.

"The state still exists, it seems," says head of Serbian TV Aleksandar Tijanic, referring to the Yugoslav ghost.

"You can't erase 70 years of a joint state despite all the wars."

Scant Gains Raise Chance of Imposed Solution in Kosovo

ByNicholas Woods

Published: April 16, 2006

PRISTINA, Kosovo, April 9 — Nearly two months after talks began in Vienna in February on this province's future, both sides appear to be maneuvering to change the facts on the ground to help decide whether Kosovo will become an independent state or remain a province within

Serbia.

The issue has been regarded as the most intractable in the Balkans since

NATObombers forced Yugoslav security forces to withdraw from Kosovo in 1999, halting what international war crimes prosecutors say was a brutal campaign to force ethnic Albanians to flee.

Ethnic Albanians make up more than 90 percent of Kosovo's population, estimated at more than two million, and want total independence. Serbs, in and out of Kosovo, want a return to rule from Belgrade. With little progress in the initial phase of talks, the possibility of an eventual solution imposed by the international community — in the Albanians' favor — grows more likely.

The

UNhas been administering Kosovo since the Yugoslav withdrawal, and as a result has been paying the salaries of many local officials. Meanwhile, Serbia has continued to finance many services in Serbian enclaves across the province, including paying those local officials a second salary. In early April, Serbia ordered all Serbian government employees in Kosovo to resign from any responsibilities with the United Nations or lose their Serbian paychecks.

Diplomats say that if Serbia were to find and arrest the leading war crimes suspect and former commander of the Bosnian Serb Army,Ratko Mladic, its negotiating hand might be strengthened.

At the same time, Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leadership is trying to make the case that an independent Kosovo would protect and nurture its minorities. Kosovo's new prime minister, Agim Ceku, took office in March, after his predecessor, Bajram Kosumi, was forced to step down under pressure from international officials who considered his efforts at reconciliation with Kosovo's Serbs ineffectual.

Mr. Ceku made his inaugural address to Kosovo's Albanian-dominated assembly partly in Serbian, to the astonishment of several members of Parliament.

"I want to be seen as the prime minister of all Kosovo's citizens, Serb and Albanian," he said in an interview on April 7. His primary challenge, he said, is to persuade Kosovo's Albanian leaders and government officials to make changes that benefit the Serbs, rather than just pay lip service to foreign demands for multiethnicity.

Mr. Ceku, a former Croatian general, was a wartime commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army, the ethnic Albanian guerrilla group. Serbian government officials refuse to meet with him, but Western officials say he is one of the few ethnic Albanian leaders with the standing to convince local Kosovar authorities that they need to provide services to Serbian communities. He helped calm ethnic tensions at several critical junctures in the last six years, including during widespread rioting in March 2004 when 19 people were killed.

The negotiating teams — a Kosovar panel of ethnic Albanians, and a Serbian group drawn from Belgrade and Kosovo — are to return to the table in Vienna on May 4, when they will debate proposals to give more powers to local authorities. That measure would allow Kosovo Serbs a greater say in running their affairs. The next week discussions should start on the protection of religious and historic sites, in particular the Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries that dot Kosovo.

But the negotiating teams have shown little room for compromise even on these issues, and diplomats expect that they will have to be dealt with in the final phase of negotiations. And comments from representatives of the United States, Britain, France, Russia, Italy and Germany, who together make up the Contact Group overseeing Kosovo's negotiation process, indicate there is little alternative to granting the majority population its wish for an independent state.

A statement issued by the group after meetings with Serbian leaders in Belgrade on April 6 called on Serbia to be "realistic" in its proposals and to find a solution "acceptable to the people of Kosovo."

The leader of the United Nations mission here, Soren Jessen-Petersen, said he expected Martti Ahtisaari, the Finnish statesman and veteran negotiator, to conclude the initial negotiations by midsummer, enabling talks on sovereignty to begin.

Whatever course is taken on political authority, officials here expect the international community to retain significant governing powers. TheEU is expected to take a major role, while NATO will continue to keep the peace. It has 17,000 troops in Kosovo.

US envoy says Kosovo talks to end in 2006

Pristina, April 15 (AP): A U.S. envoy in talks on Kosovo's future said on Friday that the province's disputed status should be resolved in 2006.

U.N.-mediated talks began in February in Vienna, Austria, toward deciding whether Kosovo should become independent or remain part of Serbia.

``It remains the firm view of the United States that the final status of Kosovo must be achieved, and achieved this year,'' said Frank Wisner, a U.S. diplomat assigned to help U.N. envoys in negotiations.

``And when it's achieved, to leave the region more stable, more prosperous and a region that will be integrated into Europe,'' he said.

The negotiations _ also involving Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leadership and Serb officials from Belgrade _ aim to resolve Kosovo's status while protecting the rights of its Serb minority and preventing its internal territorial division.

The next round of U.N.-mediated talks is scheduled for May 4.

While praising the work of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian negotiators, Wisner said he would push them on the subject of protecting minority rights, as well as cultural and religious sites. On Saturday he planned to visit the 14th-century Decani Monastery, a Serb Orthodox site.

Kosovo's Serbs have refused to participate in local institutions since a brief period of ethnic violence targeting them and their property in March 2004. A key aim of U.N. negotiators is to give Serbs a voice in Kosovo and reinvigorate its decrepit economy before any possible independence.

Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, who comprise about 90 percent of the population, want independence for the tiny province, formally part of Serbia-Montenegro. Serb leaders insist on maintaining at least some control over Kosovo, and want the province's minority Serb communities to have more autonomy.

Kosovo has been a U.N. protectorate since 1999, when a NATO air bombardment stopped a crackdown by Serb forces on ethnic-Albanian separatists.

Wisner on Thursday visited neighboring Macedonia in an attempt to build ``support for final status of Kosovo'' in the region.

Kosovo Consequences

April 14, 2006: The Serbian government said that an independent Kosovo would be "a precedent with unforeseeable consequences" for the rest of the Balkans. Serbia argues that an independent Kosovo would destabilize the rest of the Balkans. Serbia is offering to conduct direct talks with Kosovar Albanians and is promising Kosovo autonomy within Serbia.

April 10,2006: Montenegro intends to conduct a plebiscite on May 21 to determine if Montenegro will separate from Serbia. Whatever the result of the vote, Montenegro has told Serbia that it wants to maintain an "open border" with Serbia. Montenegrins and Serbs would only have to show an i.d. card in order to cross the border. So far Serbia has not responded to Montenegro's offer. Serbia is against Montenegrin independence. An "open border" would allow Montenegrin separatists to be "independent" but still benefit from a close relationship with Serbia.

Turkey said that it supported Bosnia's request to join NATO. At the moment Bosnia is trying to join NATO's Partnership for Peace program (which is a "preparatory" NATO of sorts, a program designed to improve military training and strengthen democratic institutions). Turkey's ties with Bosnia run deep. Turkey and Bosnia are increasing bi-lateral trade and investment