Annan wants early start to talks on Kosovo

UN: UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said yesterday that he wanted talks on the future of Kosovo to start soon, pitting ethnic-Albanian separatists against a Serbian government that refuses to grant independence to the region.

"Today I will inform the Security Council that I want to open discussions about the status of Kosovo," Mr Annan declared.

"Naturally I cannot say now what the result will be. The question of independence has been posed; the question of autonomy has been posed.

"We will discuss all that with Belgrade, with Pristina," he said, referring to the capitals of Serbia and Kosovo.

Kosovo's two million people, almost 90 per cent of them ethnic Albanians, have been governed by the UN since 1999, when Nato bombing forced Slobodan Milosevic's troops and paramilitaries to halt an offensive against separatist guerrillas.

A UN envoy has been studying the situation in the region in recent months, paying particular attention to the lot of the 100,000 Serbs, many of whom live in Nato-protected enclaves but still fear attack from mobs.

Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders say democracy and minority rights are improving, while Belgrade insists the region is still far too volatile for talks on its final status, pointing to riots in March 2004 that left 19 people dead and several Serb Orthodox churches in flames.

Nevertheless, Kosovo's UN governor, Soren Jessen-Petersen, said negotiations would begin before the end of the year, with a UN envoy shuttling between Belgrade and Pristina.

Serbian leaders have said Kosovo can have "more than autonomy, but less than independence", without really spelling out what that means, and they know the sensitivity of their countrymen over the fate of the nation's historical and spiritual heartland.

Using potential EU membership and much-needed financial assistance as incentives, the West is expected to have to coax Belgrade along the path to a final decision, while keeping in check Kosovo's demands for immediate independence.

The EU gave Serbia-Montenegro a gentle pat on the back this month by announcing the start of talks on a stabilisation and association agreement.