There should not be any deadlines in the process of settling the situation around Kosovo, the Russian representative to the Contact Group on Kosovo said on Thursday.
"No rigid time frame must be set. The UN secretary general has set a deadline for a report by the troika -- Russia, the United States and the European Union, but not for the talks," Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko said in an interview published by the newspaper Vremya Novostei on Thursday.
A draft of a new resolution on Kosovo "is possible only when we are able to reach a compromise between the sides by December 10 and record in the report that a solution is found," he said.
According to Botsan-Kharchenko, only if the troika forged a solution acceptable for both Belgrade and Pristina could proposals be referred to the UN Security Council.
"But if no compromise is found, there will be no sense in working on a draft. The Security Council would be able to pass a resolution only if it is based on a negotiated solution," the Russian diplomat said.
The goal, pursued by the troika, is to launch a direct dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, he said.
"The direct dialogue must be real, not an imitation, or it will only make tensions worse and will fail to stimulate trust-building between the parties. This is of crucial significance. The current level of trust is very low," he said.
Kosovo, the southern Serbian province, has been run by the United Nations and NATO since 1999. Ethnic Albanians, who make up 90 percent of the province's 2 million population, are demanding independence, while Serbia and the Serbs in Kosovo want it to remain within Serbia.
In March, UN special envoy Martin Ahtisaari submitted a draft plan, which envisions internationally supervised independence for Kosovo, to the Security Council concerning the Kosovo issue.
The plan, supported by the United States and many other western countries, were strongly opposed by Serbia and its ally Russia which wields a powerful veto in the UN Security Council.
Delegations of Belgrade and Pristina, following an interval of six months, are expected to resume talks on Kosovo's future status in Vienna on Aug. 30. The troika of representatives from Russia, the United States and the European Union will broker the talks.
Source: Xinhua
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