Deadlock At Kosovo Meet For Settlement Of Balkan Province
Jacob Cherian - All Headline News Staff Writer Zagreb, Croatia (AHN) - For the first time since the war eight years ago, the leaders of Serbia and Kosovo met together to try to agree on a settlement for the contested southern Balkan province. The U.N. envoy and former Finnish President, Martti Ahtisaari mediated the Vienna summit of Serbian and Kosovo Prime Ministers and Presidents. The end result of the summit merely pointed out the opposing positions on the issue of Kosovo's independence. Ahtisaari told the Guardian, "The sides are quite apart," at the end of the one-day summit. Six months into the U.N.-mediated talks on the ultimate status of the territory, under international rule since NATO bombed the Serbs out of Kosovo in 1999, the Presidents and Prime Ministers of Serbia and Kosovo met at a former Hapsburg palace to argue out the independence for Kosovo. The Kosovan Albanian team said that nothing short of independence and sovereignty was in their interest. The Serbian side said they would offer everything except independence to the majority Albanian population. The latter argued that it would not forfeit 15 percent of its national territory, particularly since many Serbs see the province as the cradle of their nation.
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