Political talks between Pristina and Belgrade must start and they cannot focus only on technical issues, De Hoop Scheffer said during a visit to Pristina on Friday, calling on local Serbs to join in political processes and institutions in the province.
The NATO official said that the dialogue on Kosovo's status could be postponed if no satisfactory progress in the fulfilment of international standards was made, adding that there were signs of such progress, but that much remained to be done.
De Hoop Scheffer visited Kosovo at the helm of a NATO delegation that also held talks with Kosovo officials and NATO and Kosovo Force (KFOR) representatives. The delegation also visited the town of Mitrovica where it held talks with Serb political representatives. There are currently 18,000 NATO troops deployed in the province.
The UN Mission in Kosovo and the Kosovo government have called on local Serbs to return to the Kosovo political institutions after the Serbian government's Council for Kosovo earlier this week called on Kosovo Serb political representatives to boycott the work of those institutions.
Members of the Serb List for Kosovo and Metohija have been boycotting the work of the Kosovo parliament and government for almost seven months. Their predecessor, a coalition called "Return", which included most members of the Serb List, left the Kosovo parliament in March last year after three-day riots in the province that were directed mostly against the Serb community.
The leader of the Serb List, Oliver Ivanovic, has repeated that the boycott is not in the interest of Kosovo Serbs, however, the Serb List has decided to follow the decision of the Council for Kosovo and not to return to the parliament.
Ivanovic is one of the group's eight representatives elected into the parliament at the elections in October last year.
The Kosovo government has described the decision of the authorities in Belgrade as rash and expressed hope that the Serb List would soon change its position.
Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova too has criticised the authorities in Belgrade over their position, stating that Kosovo Serbs were citizens of Kosovo and should look for their future in Kosovo rather than seek instructions from Belgrade.