UN Envoy to Unveil Proposal on Kosovo ‘Independence’

Western diplomats familiar with the details of UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari’s plan said it would not explicitly mention independence, but would lay the groundwork for conditional, internationally-supervised statehood. The blueprint still needs approval from the UN Security Council.Kosovo has been a UN protectorate since 1999, when Nato airstrikes stopped Serbia’s crackdown on separatist ethnic Albanian rebels. Ethnic Albanians, who account for 90 per cent of Kosovo’s 2 million population, have rejected Serbia’s offer of broad autonomy within Serbian borders and demand outright independence. Diplomats warned that the roadmap – to be presented today to Serb leaders in Belgrade and Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian leadership in the provincial capital of Pristina – would disappoint people on both sides of the ethnic divide.

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