SERBIA: UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari meets Kosovo President and Prime Minister.

Martti Ahtisaari, the UN special envoy for Kosovo and a former Finnish president, met with representatives of Kosovo's Albanian majority and Serbian minority on Wednesday (August 23). The visit is part of a three-day round of negotiations on the future of the province. On Wednesday he met with Kosovo President, Fatmir Sejdiu and Kosovo Prime Minister, Agim Ceku and held a meeting with the Kosovo negotiating team. While in Kosovo, Ahtisaari is to meet with Joachim Rucker, the head of the local UN administration as well as representatives of the province's Serbs. As Ahtisaari was meeting the Kosovo officials in the parliament building dozens of activists from the "Self determination - No negotiations" movement blocked all the exits of the building. The group is campaigning for self-determination for Kosovo. Kosovo's Albanians have demanded full independence for the province, but Serbia is unwilling to agree. Little progress has been made in bringing the positions of the two negotiating sides closer. While ethnic Albanians insist on full independence for Kosovo, Serbia equally insists on not losing its territory and offers wide autonomy instead. The United Nations took control of Kosovo in 1999 when Serb forces were driven out by 78 days of NATO bombing aimed at halting their two-year counter-insurgency war against Albanian guerrillas in which some 10,000 civilians were killed.

ITN Source | August 24, 2006

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