There is no chance of a compromise being found on the future of the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo, a member of a troika of foreign envoys said ahead of their visit Monday to Belgrade and Pristina. "After intensive efforts made during the past 120 days in finding common points, I think there are no additional options that would lead towards a Kosovo status solution based on compromise," EU mediator Wolfgang Ischinger told the daily Blic. Ischinger and his co-negotiators, Russia's Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko and Frank Wisner of the United States, are to discuss their draft report on Kosovo with the rival Serbian and Kosovo Albanian camps on Monday.
Leaders of Kosovo's Albanian majority insist they will proclaim independence soon after the envoys give their final report to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on December 10. Serbia is prepared only to grant wide autonomy.
The international community fears such a move might inflame tensions and spill over into violence that leads to an exodus of Serbs from tiny enclaves in the Balkan territory. As a result, NATO last week reinforced its 17,000-strong KFOR peacekeeping mission in Kosovo with US and German troops, mainly in the Serb-dominated north of the province.
In his comments to Blic, Ischinger admitted a "possible scenario" would be that the leaders of Kosovo's 90-percent ethnic Albanians unilaterally declare independence. "My impression is that this step shall be coordinated to the possible extent, with the EU, US and other countries. One thing is clear: the status quo is unsustainable and a decision is necessary.
"As regards the question how the international community should act towards the status of Kosovo after December 10, you shall get different replies at the capitals of EU, Russia and the US."
Kosovo has been run by a United Nations mission since 1999, when NATO bombing drove out Belgrade-controlled forces waging a crackdown on separatist Albanian guerrillas and their civilian supporters.
"It would be very difficult for the troika to suggest what should be done after December 10. We shall leave that to our governments to decide," said Ischinger. "The report we are going to submit to the UN secretary general shall contain the whole course of the troika's participation in the negotiations," said the German diplomat.
"It shall be also mentioned in it how and to what extent the parties have cooperated with us."
Serbia, which considers Kosovo its historic heartland, insists the process should end in the UN Security Council, where it has the support of its veto-wielding ally Russia.
The troubled country will also play host Monday to chief UN war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte on her final visit to Belgrade before her mandate expires on December 31. Del Ponte will hold talks with leaders on Serbia's cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which is key to its EU membership ambitions.
Belgrade is under pressure to capture three of the four remaining fugitives of the ICTY, which is based in The Hague. Chief among them is Ratko Mladic, a former Bosnian Serb general wanted for genocide over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys -- the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II.