Serbs and Albanians await U.N. plan for Kosovo

BELGRADE (Reuters) - United Nations special envoy Martti Ahtisaari will hand over his plan for the future of Kosovo on Friday to Serb authorities braced for proposals that will set the breakaway province on a path to independence.

The former Finnish president, who mediated months of largely fruitless talks in 2006 in search of a compromise between Serbia and leaders of Kosovo's 90 percent Albanian majority, will meet President Boris Tadic but not Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica.

Kostunica says he cannot receive the envoy because, following an inconclusive general election on January 21, he is merely a caretaker leader.

But Kostunica has strongly attacked Ahtisaari for alleged anti-Serb bias and his gesture is clearly understood here as a public snub.

A somber reception was likely for a plan that some Serbs say will be an "imposed" settlement which could provoke violence in the divided province where 100,000 Serbs live in enclaves.

"The question of the future status of Kosovo is the most important issue of state," Tadic's Democratic Party said.

"It is in the interests of our citizens and our struggle to preserve our sovereignty that this issue be approached with all the seriousness it deserves," it said, in an attack on Kostunica for making Kosovo and the Ahtisaari visit a political football.

A summary of Ahtisaari's plan seen by Reuters confirms that Ahtisaari will avoid recommending independence by name, and will not refer to Serbian sovereignty, which Belgrade insists the United Nations cannot violate by amputating Kosovo.

It will, however, make clear that Kosovo will not return to Serbian rule and will obtain legal status that permits other countries to eventually recognize it as an independent state.

"Passage of a (U.N.) resolution would create a platform for Kosovo to declare independence and those countries minded to do so would recognize that," said a Western diplomat.

"The Serbs would have to accept the loss of Kosovo, the Kosovars would have to accept a continued international presence, significant limitations on their sovereignty and a very generous package of rights for the Kosovo Serbs..."

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