VIENNA, Feb. 28 (UPI) -- Serbia is demanding its police be allowed to guard its churches and monasteries in the predominantly ethnic-Albanian Kosovo province, Serbian media reports.
Serbs attending U.N.-led talks with ethnic-Albanians on the future status of Kosovo in Austria on Wednesday said Belgrade's police should be attached to international military troops in protecting nearly 50 Serbian Orthodox Church sacred sites, the Serbian news agency Tanjug reported.
The request was in response to a proposal by Martti Ahtisaari, the chief U.N. envoy to the Kosovo talks, who said the Serbian churches would be guarded mainly by local Kosovo police, supported by some international troops.
Serbs and ethnic-Albanians began closing rounds of the talks in Vienna on Feb. 21, and Ahtisaari plans to end discussions by mid-March before working out a draft plan to be submitted to the U.N. Security Council for approval.
The yearlong talks have been mostly futile Serbs claiming Kosovo will always be an integral part of Serbia and ethnic-Albanians insisting Kosovo should be independent of Belgrade.
U.N. administrators and NATO troops have been deployed in Kosovo to curb ethnic conflicts since 1999.
