AUSTRIA:Austrian chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer is working with Serbia on a deal to grant the breakaway province of Kosovo independence in a way that is acceptable to Belgrade.
Mr Gusenbauer told reporters the West had to acknowledge that Serb leaders at the moment could not endorse the independence plan proposed by UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari, and a formula was needed which did not humiliate Belgrade.
"We are working with [Serbian president] Boris Tadic and his people to find a way to implement the essence of the Ahtisaari plan," Mr Gusenbauer said late on Thursday.
A Social Democrat who took office in January as head of a wide coalition government, Mr Gusenbauer said Austria had established itself as an honest broker in the region.
"It can't be the goal to humiliate Serbia, but there needs to be a deal where both [Serbia and Kosovo] emerge from the situation holding their heads high," he said.
The UN Security Council is discussing Mr Ahtisaari's plan, in which one of the major problems is how to deal with the northern part of Kosovo, inhabited predominantly by Serbs.
Mr Gusenbauer said one way out might be to model the area on the semi-autonomous province of Alto Adige in northern Italy, known in Austria as South Tyrol.
The region is populated predominantly by German-speaking people with Austria as their guarantor state.
Italy and Austria agreed in 1972 that the province could have special legislative rights and fill major administrative posts without interference from Rome, an element missing from Mr Ahtisaari's plan for the Serb areas of Kosovo.
"Perhaps the northern part of Kosovo could develop in a similar fashion as South Tyrol has developed in the past in Italy," Gusenbauer said.
"There are a number of models."
Serbia has so far rejected any deal that would give Kosovo independence, even if Serbia had a guarantor role for the Serb areas or Serbs were given more rights in Kosovo.
Mr Gusenbauer also said that in his view Turkey was not yet ready to join the European Union because of its human rights record. Hopes for a quick accession should not be encouraged, he said.
"As long as Turkish citizens are asking for asylum in Austria, and as long as the Austrian authorities deem the reasons on which such requests are based are so strong that asylum will actually be granted, it will be impossible for Turkey to join," Mr Gusenbauer said.