VIENNA - Top Serbian and Kosovo officials were to start last-ditch talks Monday on the future status of the breakaway Serbian province, ahead of a December 10 deadline to resolve the sole remaining problem left over from the dismemberment of the former Yugoslavia.
The three-day meeting in the spa resort town of Baden, near Vienna, will be led by the troika of European, Russian and US mediators: Wolfgang Ischinger, Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko and Frank Wisner.
The troika is due to submit its report on the province to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on December 10.
Kosovo has been under UN administration since 1999 following a Serbian crackdown on the independence-seeking ethnic Albanian population.
"Of course an agreement on the status will be ideal. But alas, it does not look likely that we will achieve that by December 10," Ischinger said last week.
The two sides have so far failed to reach any accord over the future status of the province, whose 1.8 million ethnic Albanian population wants to break all links with Serbia.
But Belgrade, backed by its powerful ally Russia, has staunchly rejected such notion, offerring instead a wide autonomy for Kosovo, but within Serbia's territory.
Kosovo's outgoing prime minister Agim Ceku said it was "up to Belgrade" if the two sides could reach an agreement during the talks in Baden.
"If they are courageous enough to distance from the past and accept reality, we can reach an accord," Ceku told reporters upon arrival to Vienna.
Kosovo has been under UN administration since 1999 following a Serbian crackdown on the independence-seeking ethnic Albanian population.
"The only acceptable solution is the independence for Kosovo," Ceku said, rejecting Belgrade proposals for the autonomy of the province.
But Slobodan Samardzic, Serbia's minister in charge of Kosovo warned of a possible "period of significant conflicts" in the Balkans if final talks on the province's future fail.
If Kosovo unilaterally declares independence, the Balkans and all of Europe will be "plunged into a period of uncertainty," he added and tensions between Kosovo and Serbia will only mount.
Serbia, which considers Kosovo as a cradle of its nation and religion, insists that Kosovo is an integral part of its territory and history and is willing to grant the majority ethnic Albanian province only a wide autonomy.
In an interview with the Austrian daily Kurier, former guerrilla leader-turned politician Hashim Thaci -- likely to become Kosovo's new prime minister -- said he was "convinced Kosovo would be independent very soon after December 10."
But Thaci, whose party won legislative elections in Kosovo on November 17, said Pristina "would not do anything without the approval" of the United States and European Union.
bur-an/ach
11/26/2007 03:15 GMT