UN Envoy Reassures Kosovo

Martti Ahtisaari (file photo) (epa) 26 November 2005 -- The UN envoy for Kosovo talks, Martti Ahtisaari, has said the international community will not abandon Kosovo no matter what the outcome of talks on the province's future.

Ahtisaari said whether Kosovo and its majority ethnic Albanian population gains independence or remains a part of Serbia it will need further assistance from the international community for some time yet.

Ahtisaari then went to Albania to meet with President Alfred Moisiu to bring the same message.

Ahtisaari has already visited Serbia, where the government rejected an independent Kosovo.

Ahtisaari travels next to Macedonia, which also has a large ethnic Albanian minority.

Kosovo has been under UN administration since 1999 when a NATO bombing campaign drove Serb forces from the province.

(AFP/AP)

Spotlight On Kosovo

Spotlight On Kosovo

THE WORLD'S NEWEST NATION? The region of Kosovo has a population of more than 2 million, some 90 percent of whom are ethnic Albanians. It was one of the poorest regions in the former Yugoslavia, but has considerable mineral wealth and an enterprising population, many of whom work abroad but keep close contact with Kosovo. All ethnic Albanian political parties seek independence on the principles of self-determination and majority rule. They feel that Serbia lost its historically based claim to what was its autonomous province under the 1974 constitution by revoking that autonomy in the late 1980s and then conducting a crackdown in 1999 that forced some 850,000 people to flee their homes.

Since NATO's intervention that year to stop the expulsions, Kosovo has been under a UN administration (UNMIK). The UN has begun to gradually transfer functions to elected Kosovar institutions. The primary Serbian concerns are physical safety for the local Serbian minority, a secure return for the tens of thousands of Serbian displaced persons, and protection for historic Serbian religious buildings. The main problems affecting all Kosovars, however, are economic. Until Kosovo's final status is clarified and new legislation passed and enforced, it will not be able to attract the investment it needs to provide jobs for its population, which is one of the youngest and fastest growing in Europe. Prosperity is widely seen as the key to political stability and interethnic coexistence in Kosovo, as is the case in much of Southeastern Europe.

For an archive of RFE/RL's coverage of developments in the disputed region of KOSOVO, click here.