Upon arriving in Belgrade Ahtisaari met Serbian President Boris Tadic and handed him a proposal on the resolving of Kosovo's status.
This is a draft proposal, Ahtisaari said. In the coming weeks I will invite both sides to present their constructive remarks after which I will send the final proposal on Kosovo's status to the UN Security Council, the Finnish official told a news conference after the talks with Tadic.
Ahtisaari stressed that his proposal attached special attention to the protection of non-Albanian communities in Kosovo and guarantees for their representation in the executive and legislative authorities, self-government units and the protection of cultural heritage and the Serb orthodox Church in Kosovo.
The UN special envoy, who after talks with Tadic left for Pristina, said he planned a meeting with both sides on 13 February so as to hear their remarks to the proposal he handed today.
Ahtisaari said the diametrically opposed positions of the Serbs and Kosovo Albanians were "extremely fixed" but he was allowing them one more chance to find compromise in talks this month on the future status of the territory.
"Now we have to see if the parties want to have further consultations," Ahtisaari said. "We would like to start on the 13th (of February," he told a news conference, declining to speak about Kosovo's possible independence and comment on remarks that he did not accept arguments submitted by the outgoing Serbian government that the negotiations should be interrupted until a new government is formed.
There was no point in waiting for a new Serbian government to be formed following last month's inconclusive election, he said, because "whether it's now or a little bit later, the same people would be on either side of the table."
Outgoing Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica declined to meet Ahtisaari, stressing that given that a new government had not yet been formed, he could only do "technical jobs".
During the talks between Ahtisaari and Tadic, some 100 members of the families of abducted and missing Kosovo Serbs gathered outside the Serbian president's building, in downtown Belgrade, carrying photos of their missing relatives and banners reading "KLA-NATO-KFOR-UNMIK are responsible - 2,500 Serbs have been killed", "Kosovo- Serbia's Soul"
Later today, Ahtisaari will meet top Kosovo politicians and representatives of Kosovo Serbs and the Serb Orthodox Church.
The Presidency of the European Union issued a statement earlier today, expressing its firm support to Martti Ahtisaari's intention of holding intensive talks with and between the two sides on the basis of these proposals in the weeks immediately following their presentation.
The Presidency strongly urged Belgrade and Pristina to approach these talks in a serious manner and without reservations. "Both sides must demonstrate responsibility, flexibility and a recognition of the need for realistic compromise-based solutions," the German Presidency of the EU said.
The Presidency of the European Union believes that resolving the status of Kosovo will make a crucial contribution to securing regional stability. It is furthermore an important step on the road towards European and Euro-Atlantic structures for Serbia, Kosovo and the entire region, the statement said.
Kosovo has been run by the U.N. since 1999 when 11 weeks of bombing by NATO forced the late Serbian strongman Slobodan
Milosevic to withdraw his forces, accused of killing 10,000 Albanians during a counter-insurgency war.
The poor, landlocked province of two million, about the size of Cyprus or Jamaica, is cherished by Serbia for its cultural
and religious heritage as the medieval homeland of the nation.