Rival camps reject 'neutral status' for Kosovo

(PRISTINA) - Pristina and Belgrade, rival camps in talks on Kosovo's future, both rejected Wednesday an EU envoy's reported proposal to give the UN-run province a "neutral status."

"Any neutral status does not solve the matter as is necessary," Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu told reporters here.

"Kosovo's destiny is independence and entering the European Union. It's our basic approach and we won't accept any solution that in this or in that way presents derogation or excludes the independence of Kosovo."

In Belgrade, Serbia's minister for Kosovo Slobodan Samardzic also poured scorn on the idea.

"Kosovo cannot have a 'neutral status' with regards to Serbia because the province of Kosovo is an integral and inalienable part of Serbia's territory," Samardzic told radio B92.

"It's very important that working relations are established between Serbia and its province of Kosovo as soon as possible," Samardzic said.

"But before that it clearly has to be confirmed that the province has a status of substantial autonomy within Serbia."

The proposal was earlier revealed to journalists in Washington by Wolfgang Ischinger, the European Union's representative in last-ditch talks on Kosovo, according to the Voice of America's Albanian language service.

Ischinger expressed the belief that the new proposal could help to normalise relations between Pristina and Belgrade by excluding even "a single word on status."

"The agreement on 'neutral status' will be an offer to both sides to form relations independently of any decision today or tomorrow on Kosovo's status," Ischinger said in the report.

The German diplomat forms part of a "troika" of EU, US and Russian envoys guiding the latest round of negotiations on the future status of Kosovo.

In the talks, leaders of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority are demanding nothing less than independence, while the Serbian government is only prepared to offer them broad autonomy.

Kosovo is technically still a Serbian province, but has been run by a UN mission since the end of 1998-1999 conflict, when NATO bombing ended a crackdown by Serb forces against ethnic Albanians.