Deadline nears for Kosovo independence negotiations

Unlike other parts of former Yugoslavia, such as multiethnic Bosnia, the main ethnic groups in Kosovo rarely mixed. "Albanian officials told me recently that even if Mother Teresa [an Albanian] were the president of Serbia, we don't want to be part of it," says Louis Sell, a former US diplomat specializing in Russia and the Balkans.

For Serbians, Kosovo is a spiritual homeland, central to their national myths and heroic stories – a kind of Jerusalem. In the past year, Belgrade has stoked Kosovo mythology. Serbs haven't been able to visit Kosovo since the 1999 NATO bombing, but buttressed by support in Moscow, the Serbs have in the past year passed a constitution describing Kosovo as an "integral" part of Serbia. Moscow opposes any Kosovo independence not ratified by the Security Council; the EU is reluctant to back independence without unanimity among its members.

As a result, Kosovo's status has become increasingly sensitive for the US and EU leaders like France, Great Britain, and Germany. It has become a give and take over the definition of borders in a region pockmarked by ethnic enclaves, a struggle over emerging great power geopolitics and spheres of influence. For many Albanians, it is a simple test of patience.

"The international community thinks of Kosovo as a Serb and regional instability issue," says Christopher Hall, president of American University in Kosovo, a private college in Pristina. "The real crisis is the unemployment and stagnation that comes as a result of the uncertainty over final status. I worry that this could eventually breed a backlash."

Quintin Hoare, former director of the Bosnian Institute in London, says the inability of the global community to draw a line for Kosovo is counterproductive. "The more delay, the more extreme problems and positions develop in Kosovo," he argues. "It's an old pattern."

The story line in Pristina is that Kosovo will declare independence, probably sometime in January, in consultation with the US and leading EU members. Russia will block this in the Security Council. But UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon will enable the act and have EU police replace UN troops.

Pristina, a city of mud and new construction, swirls with speculation. Last month, journalist Berat Buzhala wrote that he was invited through a US back channel to meet a US official. The unnamed official floated the idea of freezing the independence process until 2020, during which time EU and the US would invest some $7 billion a year in Kosovo. The plan included the guarantee that a referendum would take place in 2020, meaning that Kosovars would essentially be signing onto an independence plan.

In an interview, Mr. Buzhala gave a number of specific, concrete details of the meeting. Many officials here pooh-pooh the entire story.

Buzhala says the deal is the only good prospect. "The situation here is escalating," he says. "I'm worried what will happen if we don't get independence, because people are starting to think irrationally…. We can create an army in four hours."

This week, the city is discussing a plan by the EU to delay independence for weeks or months while implementing the Ahtisaari plan. That would buy time to convince Russia that Europeans were committed to protecting Serbs. A story in the International Herald Tribune stated that EU members were "cautiously optimistic" that new Kosovo Prime Minister Thaci would go along with the plan.

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