Rift Widens Among Nations Over Kosovo

Martti Ahtisaari, former Finnish President who led months of negotiations between Serbian leaders and representatives from Kosovo's ethnic Albanian arrives at Vienna's Hofburg palace, Friday, Jan. 26, 2007. Ahtisaari will brief the United States, Russia and key European allies Friday on his proposal for the future of Serbia's independence-minded province of Kosovo. (AP Photo) (Str - AP)

His deputy, Lufti Haziri, said the U.N. blueprint was crafted around "two main issues, two main principles: Kosovo's right to its future and Kosovo's obligations toward minorities."

But diplomats and officials have said the proposal likely will not mention the word independence, although it is expected to give Kosovo some attributes of a sovereign state, such as access to international institutions and provisions for a security force.

Kosovo has been under U.N. control since mid-1999 _ when NATO airstrikes ended former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists _ and is currently patrolled by a 16,000-strong NATO-led peacekeeping force.

Ahtisaari has said his plan focuses on the protection of Kosovo's small Serbian minority and envisages a strong international presence backed up by the NATO peacekeepers.

International mediators have held yearlong talks between ethnic Albanian and Serbian leaders on issues such as giving self-rule to Serbs in areas where they form a majority, protecting their religious and cultural monuments and offering them constitutional guarantees so they are not overruled.

Oliver Ivanovic, a moderate Kosovo Serb leader from the ethnically divided city of Kosovska Mitrovica, said he was briefed earlier on key elements of the plan. He said Serbs "will have special rights in security, health services, education and cultural matters."

Diplomats said the plan also outlines post-status international supervision, with the European Union's top envoy in Kosovo likely to have veto power over laws and government decisions.

That would resemble the Dayton accords that ended Bosnia's 1992-95 war and established an international administrator to oversee that country's day-to-day affairs.

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Associated Press writers Aleksandar Vasovic in Vienna and Garentina Kraja in Kosovo contributed to this report.