U.N. negotiator says he sees no
solution in Kosovo status talks
MONDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2006
"I don't see the parties moving on the status issue. The parties remain diametrically opposed," the chief U.N. negotiator in the talks said in Helsinki. "I can't see there will be a negotiated settlement."
"Pristina has been prepared to make clear concessions, but Belgrade has been considerably less so," Ahtisaari said at a seminar on the Balkans organized by a Finnish security policy institute. "My overall assessment of these technical talks is that the prospect for finding a common ground is very limited."
Ahtisaari said the Serbs and ethnic Albanians in Kosovo would not reach a pact "at least not in my lifetime."
However, he added that he and his team "will continue to press forward until all potential areas for compromise have been explored."
Kosovo, formally a Serbian province, has been run by the United Nations and NATO since a 1999 war. The United States and the Contact Group for Kosovo, which includes Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia, have sought to wrap up the talks by year end.
But the negotiations, which started early this year, have produced no result with both sides entrenched in their positions — the ethnic Albanians demanding independence from Serbia and Belgrade offering broad autonomy for the breakaway region.
Ahtisaari, a former Finnish president, in 1999 negotiated with Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic to end the fighting in Kosovo. Last year, he brokered a peace treaty between the Indonesian government and rebels in Aceh province ending 30 years of fighting in the region.
Ahtisaari is due to report to the United Nations within the next few months on the status of the Kosovo talks. He stressed that an agreement must be reached in Kosovo to bring calm to the troubled region.
"A solution must be found, but that then means that the (U.N.) Security Council must take a stand in the issue," he said.
"Kosovo is the last piece of the Balkan puzzle that the international community has been attempting to reassemble since the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia 15 years ago," Ahtisaari said. "Without a lasting solution for Kosovo, there will be no lasting solution for the Balkans."
