Pristina - The Serbian government and representatives of the Albanian majority in Kosovo held four hours of landmark talks here yesterday on the future of the troubled Serbian province.
"This is a good first step," the US ambassador, Mr Christopher Hill, said, adding however that "a lot of progress needs to be made". Mr Hill, the US ambassador in Macedonia, was at the headquarters of the Kosovo Democratic League (LDK) where the negotiators were meeting, but did not attend the talks. Since March, Kosovo has descended into a near war-like situation with armed ethnic Albanian groups controlling parts of the province, where around 200 people have died since a Serbian police crackdown in late February.