Serbia has received an invitation from the Contact Group troika of envoys for new rounds of talks on Kosovo in Vienna set for Aug. 30, news from Belgrade reported on Thursday.
The representatives of Belgrade and those of Pristina wouldn't hold direct talks in Vienna, instead, the mediators would meet separately with both negotiating teams, the Serbian foreign ministry told local media.
The composition of the Serbian delegation will be determined over the next few days after the format of the talks has been set, Tanjug, Serbia's official news agency, reported.
Neither Martti Ahtisaari, the UN special envoy who presided over former rounds of talks, nor his deputy Albert Rohan will be directly involved in the upcoming talks. However, his office will send an expert to the meetings as an observer.
Kosovo has been run by the UN and NATO since 1999 when NATO launched air strikes to stop Serbia from attacking Albanian separatists. Ethnic Albanians, who make up 90 percent of the province's 2 million population, are demanding independence while the Serbians and the Serbs in Kosovo want it to remain within Serbia.
Ahtisaari, after more than a year of fruitless mediations between the Serbian government and the ethnic Albanians, submitted in March a draft plan, which envisions internationally supervised independence for Kosovo to the UN Security Council.
The plan, supported by the Unites States and many western countries, were robustly opposed by Serbia and its ally Russia which wields a powerful veto in the Security Council.
Last week, envoys from the EU, the United States and Russia, the so-called Kosovo-troika, made a 130-day effort to break the impasse over Kosovo. They have decided to launch a new negotiation over the issue in Vienna at the end of this August.
Source: Xinhua
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