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Pristina and Belgrade stick to their positions ahead of new round of talks

PRISTINA/BELGRADE, May 30 (Hina) - The negotiations on the future of Kosovo will resume on Wednesday in Vienna, which will host the sixth round of the talks between Pristina and Belgrade.
PRISTINA/BELGRADE, May 30 (Hina) - The negotiations on the future of Kosovo will resume on Wednesday in Vienna, which will host the sixth round of the talks between Pristina and Belgrade.

The talks, chaired by UN Deputy Chief Negotiator for Kosovo Albert Rohan and a European Union envoy, Stephan Lehne, will focus on economic issues, including external and internal debts, property issues, pensions and privatisation.

Kosovo's delegation will be led by Skender Hyseni and Serbia's by Dejan Popovic.

Tomorrow's meeting in Vienna will complete the first cycle of negotiations between Pristina and Belgrade on practical problems which could be solved before a final agreement on Kosovo's status.

On Tuesday, the two sides reiterated their positions regarding the future status of the province which is now populated mainly by local Albanians.

According to the 2000 Living Standard Measurement Survey of the Statistical Office of Kosovo, Kosovo's total population is estimated between 1.8 and two million, with Albanians accounting for 88 percent of the population and Serbs accounting for seven percent.

Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Qeku said that the independence of the UN-administered area would be the only fair and just solution.

"We still believe and politically support frameworks which the UN Chief Negotiator, former Finnish Prime Minister Marrti Ahtisaari, and his team have set. We ask the international community not to be deluded by Belgrade's initiatives aimed at preventing the continuation of negotiations on Kosovo," Qeku told Voice of America in the Albanian edition.

He said that only unconditional independence of Kosovo could be considered a fair solution, adding that it would guarantee stability, prosperity, inter-ethnic reconciliation and regional cooperation.

On the other hand, Serbian negotiators propose that Kosovo remain a part of Serbia with a high level of autonomy.

During the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), Kosovo used to be the southern autonomous province of the Socialist Republic of Serbia. With Slobodan Milosevic coming to power in Serbia, ethnic tensions in Kosovo rose and local Albanians were subjected to the terror of his regime which was why NATO launched air strikes against Serbia in 1999. All the time the number of local Serbs was shrinking as they were leaving for Serbia, while the portion of ethnic Albanians was on the rise.

By UN Security Council Resolution 1244 (adopted in 1999), Kosovo was in principle defined as an autonomous province within the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Kosovo is presently run by its Provisional Institutions of Self-Government and the UN Interim Administrative Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), while security is maintained by the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) and Kosovo Police Service.

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