Leiders Servië en Kosovo komen samen over toekomst Kosovo (en)
Serbian and Kosovar leaders are meeting on Friday (28 September) on the margins of the UN General Assembly for direct talks on the future status of the breakaway province of Kosovo.
Serbian president Boris Tadic told the UN assembly on Thursday that Belgrade would grant the province "the largest autonomy in the world [including] some elements of sovereign countries, for example access to international financial institutions" - but not independence.
It considers Kosovo as "an integral part of the territory of Serbia" - something which figured in the Serbian constitution since September 2006 - and estimates that the scenario of an independent Kosovo would be a move against Serbian territorial integrity.
The international community itself has been divided on the issue. Russia is traditionally backing Serbia, while the US has indicated it could recognise an independent Kosovo. The EU i is facing internal disagreements and is still struggling to find a common position on the issue.
Earlier this week, US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice said that "there's going to be an independent Kosovo. We're dedicated to that. It's the only solution that is potentially stabilising for the Balkans rather than destabilising for the Balkans".
Serbia retorted saying that such statements were undermining the efforts to find a solution acceptable for both parties.
"We are going to have direct talks on Friday [28 September]. I don't understand how independence is self-evident if we have until December 10", Serbian president Boris Tadic told the Financial Times.
"Otherwise Kosovo has little interest in negotiating", he added.
An artificial deadline?
The 10 December is the deadline set by the international community to find a solution for the Kosovo stalemate. The so-called "troika" - diplomats from the EU, Russia and the US - is then to present a report to the UN on what their diplomatic efforts have led to.
However, the more time advances, the less this deadline seems likely to be respected.
Serbia itself has said talks are unlikely to end by then and Moscow repeatedly raised voice against "artificial deadlines".
A US representative last week also told journalists in Brussels that a solution is more likely to be found after 10 December, while warning that "we have concerns that an endless process will lead to a resumption of hostilities that none of us wants to see".
But Kosovo has said that if nothing happens by 10 December, it will then unilaterally proclaim independence.
"We are committed to the independence of Kosovo being defined or decided immediately after December 10", Kosovar prime minister Agim Ceku was quoted as saying by AFP.
"We prefer a solution through the [UN] Security Council but we are also prepared to offer and make the final solution by ourselves", he added.
Consequently, the Serbian president warned against "unforeseeable consequences" that would follow "a one-sided recognition of Kosovo's independence".
Spreading of separatism
Speaking at the UN General Assembly, he put an emphasis on the increase of separatist movements in the world as one of the possible consequences of Kosovo's independence - an argument used by Russia as well as some EU states.
"The international legal order would never be the same, while many separatist movements world over would use the newly-established precedent ", Mr Tadic said.
"There are many Kosovos in the region [including] Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia, South Ossetia ... Macedonia, Bosnia or Kurdistan", he added.
Kosovo has been under UN administration since the end of the war there in 1999. It counts some two million inhabitants, 90 percent of which are ethnic Albanians.
It is the seventh entity to demand independence after the break-up of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. However, the difficulty here comes from the fact that unlike republics such as Croatia, Slovenia or Montenegro, Kosovo was a province within Serbia before Yugoslavia split up.
While no major breakthrough is expected from the bilateral talks, the meeting will be followed closely as Serbian and Kosovar leaders have only been talking to each other through intermediaries since March.