Talks on independence for Kosovo to begin

Talks on whether Kosovo should remain part of Serbia or be given independence should start soon, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has said.

phew... this is gonna be tough... i've spent 4 separate extended assignments in skopje, macedonia, less than an hour's drive from pristina, the kosovar capital... the kfor (acronym for the un forces in kosovo) troops take weekend leave in skopje and often fly in and out of the skopje airport... i had two friends who saw their mother shot and killed as they were escaping the serbian massacre across the border into macedonia... one of them still suffers from a bullet wound in his right shoulder and their father is permanently crippled... many thousands of ethnic albanians escaped across the macedonian border which, of course, has created tensions with ethnic macedonians... when i was in belgrade in july, i saw a large poster of radovan karadzic prominently displayed on the side of a building in the city center... the old enmities are still very much alive...

Belgrade has complained that Serbs in Kosovo are denied basic human rights such as safety and freedom of movement.

[...]

Ethnic Albanians make up 90% of Kosovo's estimated population of two million.

Of some 200,000 Serbs left in Kosovo, about half live in enclaves protected by Nato troops.

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