Serbia to Offer Kosovo 95 Pct Autonomy
By Associated Press 10:19 PM CDT, September 24, 2007 BELGRADE, Serbia - Serbia will offer near complete autonomy to Kosovo during the first face-to-face negotiations with rival ethnic Albanians in New York later this week, a Serbian official said Monday. The minister for Kosovo, Slobodan Samardzic, said that Belgrade's new proposal includes giving the independence-seeking Kosovo Albanians "95 percent competence" in running the province. "The Serbian proposal is new and specific and offers a form of maximum autonomy not seen in the world today," Samardzic said, adding that Kosovo would maintain "weak and minimal" links with Serbia. Although Kosovo -- where ethnic Albanians represent 90 percent of its 2 million people -- remains formally part of Serbia, it has been run by the U.N. and NATO since 1999, when NATO airstrikes ended a Serbian military crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in the southern province. Kosovo Albanian leaders have repeatedly said they are seeking nothing but complete independence. The first direct meeting between senior Serbian and ethnic Albanian officials is set for Friday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. More articles <http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld> Copyright © 2007, The Associated Press http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-serbia-kosovo,1,7372713.story [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
