Mitrovice is the key. It is the cauldron in which a new co-existence will be forged for the new Kosovo, in which Serb and Albanian will learn to share the province - or where they will prove it cannot be done.
But Mitrovice, once the northern, grimy heart of Kosovo's mining and heavy industry, has not been a place of compromise. The main bridge that spans the River Ibar in the town centre is a jungle of barbed wire through which minimal traffic passes under the watchful eyes of French Kfor troops and of Oliver's Boys, the Serb "bridge watchers" of the Cafe Dolce Vita. It has been the scene of frequent bitter fighting.
In February, eight people died when crowds of Serbs systematically cleansed flats of their non-Serb inhabitants and 1,700 fled from the north of the city. Snipers attacked French troops and only a massive operation by Kfor brought a tense calm which persists today.
Oliver Ivanovic speaks for most of the north of this city, apart from a couple of small, heavily protected Albanian enclaves, and he would like to speak for the strategically important cluster of ethnic Serb villages in the countryside to the north of the city stretching to the border with Serbia.
The villages are showing signs of willingness to participate in forthcoming municipal polls, but Mr Ivanovic is holding the line in his community of some 10,000, the largest single concentration of Serbs in the province. An industrial engineer, sports fan and father of three, Mr Ivanovic is an enigma on whom a lot may hang. An outspoken militant of non-collaboration in the newly emerging institutions of the province, the organiser of the militia of watchers who warn of Albanian incursions, he has a charm and intelligence that are immediately winning.
His language - not least his impeccable English - and his fashionable casual clothes, suggest a sophisticated cosmopolitan. His arguments are not about conquest or victory but mutual respect and conflict resolution. His act is pure New Sinn Fein.
Albanians and many UN workers say he is a paid agent of Milosevic. They have every reason to be suspicious. But he denies it vigorously, pointing to his contacts in the Belgrade opposition movement and to others in the community, supporters of Mr Milosevic's party, the SPS, who hanker after the "return" of the Yugoslav army and receive salaries from Belgrade.
"It was a dirty war," he says, coming as close as he does to acknowledging crimes against the Albanian community. "Much happened, but we cannot be sacrificed because of that. We must not all be criminalised."
He denies the right of the moderate Bishop Artemije to speak for the Kosovan Serbs, insisting the latter is unrepresentative. But although he rejects the legitimacy of, and hence participation in, the UN-led Joint Interim Administrative Council, the pragmatic Ivanovic is talking to his Albanian Mitrovice counterpart, a former KLA fighter, Bajram Rexhepi. Six joint committees are working on plans to co-administer the city.
"Participation at municipal level is just ordinary life," he says. "It's not politics." No?
Nor, by the same strange rationale, is the agreement he signed with Dr Rexhepi 10 days ago to jointly reopen a cement factory in the nearly jobless city with a mixed workforce. Other similar ventures are in the pipeline involving the once-giant TREPCE manufacturing combine. Central to his demands is "the same right of return for displaced Serbs as for Albanians".
"I am not asking more than that enough Serbs should be brought back so that they can protect themselves," he argues. Even a couple of thousand, he says, could help give new confidence, hinting at the possibility that significant returns could help lead to a reappraisal of the boycott strategy.
To the man who runs the city for the UN and must keep a lid on its explosive communal tensions, the Serb returns issue is critical. The former US general, Bill Nash, a blunt-speaking cowboy of a man, stresses that this a personal view not shared by the UN or Kfor leaderships. He believes they must take a chance and push for significant returns this year. "If we start there a number of logjams can be broken," he argues.
"The problem of soldiers is that they really take security stuff seriously," Mr Nash complains. Security does not have to be perfect, just better than walking the streets of Washington, he argues.
But the head of the UN's civil administration in Kosovo, Tom Koenigs, disagrees, at least for the time being. "The tension in the country is so high that whatever location for Serb returns is made public immediately becomes a centre of crisis," he says.
Dennis McNamara, the head of the UNHCR in the province tends to Mr Nash's view. "The political necessity for the return of the Serbs is very real," he says, insisting that it should be this year. He puts the figure of potential Serb returns from Serbia and Montenegro at 150,000. The UNHCR is testing the water to see where such returns can happen, "but we will not be bringing them back to armed enclaves. That is not a solution".
Mr Nash also has a somewhat less jaundiced view of Mr Ivanovic than many. He argues that the difference between the Gracanica and Mitrovice leaderships is not one of principle, of moderation versus extremism, but reflects strategic differences.
The latter, he argues, believe they can best use their undoubted negotiating weight to extract concessions before they enter power-sharing institutions where their influence will inevitably decline.
"What makes Mitrovice significant is that the Serb minority is substantial," he argues. "Like any other game you use your political capital." And Mr Ivanovic is a player Mr Nash can deal with.
It's as close as they come to optimism in this tormented province.
psmyth@irish-times.ie