Kosovo: the diplomatic process

15/12/2006

Six years after the 1998-1999 conflict, the UN Security Council decided the time has come to launch a political process aimed at determining Kosovo's future.

(Various sources -- 24/10/05 - 04/12/06)

Serbian and Kosovo Albanian leaders held their first face-to-face talks on July 24th, 2006, but the session only showed how far apart the two sides remained. [Getty Images]

Technically still part of Serbia, Kosovo has been a de facto UN protectorate since the end of the 1998-1999 conflict there. On June 10th, 1999, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1244, placing the war-ravaged province under UNMIK's administration pending a determination of its final status.

Over six years later, on October 24th, 2005, the Council supported a recommendation by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan for the launch of a political process aimed at resolving the issue.

The decision was taken following a comprehensive review of the province's progress in implementing a set of standards laid down by the international community as a precondition for the opening of negotiations. The review was conducted by Annan's special envoy to the region, Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide.

"The Security Council agrees with Ambassador Eide's overall assessment that, notwithstanding the challenges still facing Kosovo and the wider region, the time has come to move to the next phase," the Council said in a statement.

Annan then named former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari as his special envoy to lead the talks and Austrian diplomat Albert Rohan as deputy envoy.

Several weeks later, the EU and United States appointed their envoys for the negotiations -- Stefan Lehne and Frank Wisner, respectively.

Besides the UN, another key actor in the process is the six-nation Contact Group for Kosovo, consisting of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the United States. In November, the group drew up a set of guiding principles for the solution to the status issue, ruling out inter alia a return to the pre-1999 situation, the province's partition, or its unification with any other state as possible outcomes of the talks.

In preparation for the talks, Ahtisaari travelled to Pristina and Belgrade -- as well as to Podgorica, Skopje and Tirana -- to take stock of the positions of key players in the region.

UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari. [Getty Images]

The stances of the Serbian and Kosovo Albanian leaders on the matter were diametrically opposed.

Insisting that it should retain sovereignty over Kosovo, Belgrade said that all it could agree to was granting substantial autonomy.

The Kosovo Albanians, who make up 90% of the province's population of roughly 2 million people, demanded nothing less than full independence from Serbia.

The first direct talks between Serbian and Kosovo Albanian officials were scheduled to open on January 25th, 2006. But the death of Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova on January 21st led to nearly a one-month postponement of the negotiations.

Fetmir Sejdiu, who was eventually elected to succeed Rugova, replaced the late president also as head of the Kosovo negotiating team. Other key members of the team included Kosovo Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi, who later resigned and was replaced by Agim Ceku, opposition leaders Hashim Thaci and Veton Surroi, and the head of the province's assembly.

The Serbian negotiating team comprised President Boris Tadic, Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and other top officials. It also included representatives of the Kosovo Serb community.

The first direct, UN-led negotiations between Serbian and Kosovo Albanian officials opened in Vienna's Daun-Kinssky Palace on February 20th, 2006. The two sides participated with eight-member delegations, headed by Kosovo Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Local Government Administration Lutfi Haziri and Serbian presidential adviser Leon Kojen, respectively. The two-day talks, focusing on decentralisation, were chaired by Rohan. He said that although the meeting produced no "earth-shattering results," it had been "quite successful".

Decentralisation remained a key item on the agenda of several other rounds of talks, which also addressed minority rights and protection of cultural and historical heritage -- particularly that of the Kosovo Serb community, which numbers some 100,000 people.

Apart from economic aspects, such as liabilities and investments, debts, privatisation, and the future ownership of key industrial assets, the Vienna talks did not address the core status issue until the seventh round on July 24th, when Serbian and Kosovo Albanian leaders held their first face-to-face session. It only showed that the past five months of talks had failed to bridge the divide between Belgrade and Pristina's stances.

"It is evident that the positions of the parties remain far apart," Ahtisaari told a news conference after the meeting. "Belgrade would agree to almost anything but independence, whereas Pristina would accept nothing but full independence."

Decentralisation and minority rights were again on the agenda of an eighth round of talks on August 7th-8th, but the only agreement reached concerned naming police station commanders.

A new two-day round was held in Vienna a month later, with the Serbian and Kosovo Albanian teams again making little substantive progress, despite what Rohan described as a "good and constructive discussion".

"We had one, two or three issues where we could move forward, but really we cannot talk of a breakthrough," the UN official said of the session, which again focused largely on decentralisation, cultural heritage and the rights of ethnic communities in Kosovo.

In his regular report to the Security Council on Kosovo, released several days after the ninth round of the Vienna talks, Annan voiced disappointment that the Serbs and Kosovo Albanians had failed to come closer in their positions.

"Despite convergence on some matters, the talks revealed that the parties remain far apart on most issues," the UN chief's report said, urging both sides to show "more flexibility" so that a compromise could be reached.

Several days later, Rohan acknowledged that the chances of that happening were slim.

"We're approaching a moment where by talking alone we won't accomplish the goal," he said. "We could talk for another 10 years and not change anything."

In September, the Contact Group asked Ahtisaari to "prepare a comprehensive proposal for a status settlement". The same month, Serbia adopted a new constitution, defining Kosovo as an "unalienable" part of its territory. The majority of Serbian voters supported the country's new basic law in a referendum at the end of October, paving the way for parliamentary elections, scheduled for January 21st, 2007.

Despite its initial plans to bring the Kosovo status process to completion by the end of 2006, the international community decided that Ahtisaari should submit his proposal for a settlement after the Serbian poll.