Representatives from the United Nations (U.N.) and the Contact Group members of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the United States met on Friday in Vienna, to discuss the future status of Serbia's breakaway province of Kosovo.

The following are some basic facts about Kosovo's status:

Kosovo, with a population of 2 million people of which more than 90 percent are ethnic Albanians and about 7 percent Serb, was a southern autonomous province within Serbia before the breakup of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It was bordered by Albania and Macedonia to the south.

Under the 1974 Yugoslav constitution, Kosovo enjoyed autonomous province status within Serbia. The ethnic Albanian majority, however, has been pursuing the independence of Kosovo and resorting to violence.

In 1989, the Serbian authorities altered Kosovo's status and removed its autonomy, igniting strong opposition from ethnic Albanians. Tensions between ethnic Albanians and ethnic Serbs were worsened.

In 1992, the Yugoslav Federation disintegrated. The Serb-dominated Yugoslav parliament approved a constitution for a new state comprising only Serbia and Montenegro, and proclaimed the creation of the new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Meanwhile, the Albanian majority in Kosovo announced the founding of independent "Kosovo Republic," which was not recognized by the international community. Kosovo was sinking into the mire of turbulence.

On March 24, 1999, without the approval of the United Nations (U.N.), NATO launched airstrikes against the Yugoslav Federation under the pretext of preventing "humanitarian crises" in the region, and the Kosovo war erupted.

On June 9, 1999, Yugoslavia and NATO signed a military technical agreement on the withdrawal of Serb troops from Kosovo. On June 20, NATO Secretary General Javier Solana announced the formal end of NATO air strikes against Yugoslavia. And Kosovo has been administered by the U.N. ever since.

In 2003, the Yugoslav parliament passed a new constitutional charter, dissolving Yugoslavia and creating a country named "Serbia and Montenegro." Serbia, however, hoped to retain sovereignty over Kosovo while ethnic Albanians demanded its fully independent status rather than the "maximum autonomy" Serbian President Boris Tadic had proposed.

In November 2005, negotiations on the future status of Kosovo were officially launched.

On Feb. 20, 2006, Serbs and Kosovo Albanians sat down at the same table in Vienna for the first round of talks on the future of Kosovo. They have since held eight rounds of technical discussions in Vienna, but made no substantive progress due to their divisions on a wide range of issues, including decentralization and measures to protect the Serb minority's rights in Kosovo.

Source: Xinhua