NEW YORK, March 14 (UPI) -- "The potential of negotiations is exhausted." That was how Martti Ahtisaari, the chief U.N. envoy to Kosovo presented the situation in the province last week.
However Ahtisaari said he would submit his own proposal for the future of Serbia's province of Kosovo.
Ahtisaari's deputy negotiator Albert Rohan will submit the plan to the U.N. Security Council Thursday or Friday, a spokesman for the U.N. Office of the Special Envoy for Kosovo told the Serbian news agency Beta Monday.
Fourteen months of talks between Serbs and ethnic-Albanians ended without any agreement.
"I regret to say that at the end of the day, there was no will from the parties to move away from their previously stated positions," Ahtisaari said Saturday at a meeting with delegations from Serbia and Kosovo in Vienna. "It is my firm conclusion that the potential of negotiations is exhausted."
Both sides interpreted the U.N. plan, which was put forward in early February, as meaning independence under European Union supervision. Belgrade rejects independence, which is a goal for ethnic Albanians, who account for 90 percent of the province's population.
While the U.N. blueprint did not specifically mention independence, it gives Kosovo the right to govern itself and conclude international agreements, including membership in international bodies, under international civilian and military supervision. It also offers self-government and protection for the 100,000 remaining Serbs.
"Delaying the status resolution would not create any better conditions for a solution," said Ahtisaari, who called his own proposal a "realistic compromise."
Kosovo has been under U.N. rule since 1999 when a NATO bombing campaign drove Serbs forces out. During the war, a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Kosovo's Albanians was initiated by Serbian forces. Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled to neighboring countries; thousands of persons died.
Not all permanent members of the Security Council have expressed enthusiasm for the U.N. draft. Russia, one of five veto-wielding members, has voiced skepticism over Kosovo's independence. But Russian diplomats have admitted Moscow would abstain from the vote, rather than veto it, according to Russia's Kommersant online.
"Moving towards a timely conclusion of the Kosovo future status political process and a sustainable solution to Kosovo's future status should be a priority for the international community as a whole," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a report to the U.N. Security Council.
"Such a solution must entail a Kosovo that is stable and in which all communities can coexist in peace," he added.
But eight years after the end of the war, divisions remain.
In his report, Ban pointed to a lack of cooperation by Serbian authorities in Kosovo.
"Kosovo Serbs have continued to take very little part in the political institutions in Kosovo," the report said.
It specified political leaders of three Serb municipalities in the north of Kosovo boycotted most contact with Pristina, the province's capital. Kosovo Serbs in the assembly have not taken up their seats and the only Serb minister in the province's government was forced to resign in November after evidence of financial irregularities, said the report, which covers the activities of the U.N. Mission in Kosovo from November 2006 to February 2007.
There are also political divisions within ethnic-Albanians.
The Kosovo negotiating team, which comprises the province's president, prime minister and leaders of political parties, remains unified but radical elements are exerting pressures on its members, the report said.
In February, ethnic Albanian radicals organized violent protests against the U.N. plan, because it failed to mention full independence. Clashes with the police left two persons dead.
However, Ban's report pointed to improvements concerning security in the province, potentially ethnically-motivated incidents dropped by 70 percent.
There were a low number of incidents, mostly thefts, against Serbian Orthodox Churches.
In March 2004, 16 Serbian Orthodox Churches were destroyed during deadly clashes between ethnic Albanians and Serbs.
The report said the improvement in security around cultural heritage sites is due to increased patrols by the Kosovo Police Service, which is approximately 15 percent Serb.
Once the U.N. settlement enters into force, there will be a four month transition period during which the Assembly of Kosovo, in consultation with an international representative, will be responsible for approving a constitution.
At the end of the period, the U.N. mission's mandate will expire and all legislative and executive authority will be transferred to independent Kosovo authorities.
The Ahtisaari proposal also requests the dismantling of the Kosovo Protection Corps, a reduced version of the new Kosovo's Liberation Army.
