Serbia angry over UN’s separatist plan; Kosovo happy

BELGRADE, Saturday (AP) - Kosovo took its first tentative steps on the road to possible statehood after a U.N. envoy unveiled a long-awaited blueprint for the future of the ethnically tense Serbian province.

The plan's architect, former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, did not explicitly mention independence in the proposal he presented to Serbian and ethnic Albanian leaders on Friday.

But his 58-page roadmap spelled out conditions for internationally supervised self-rule — complete with the trappings of nationhood such as a flag, anthem, army and constitution and the right to apply for membership in international organizations. It envisions a Kosovo ''governing itself democratically and with full respect for the rule of law.''

Both Serbia's pro-Western president, Boris Tadic, and its nationalist prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica, immediately rejected the plan, and reasserted the country's claims to Kosovo as the heart of the ancient Serb homeland.

''I told Mr. Ahtisaari that Serbia and I, as its president, will never accept Kosovo's independence,'' Tadic said in a statement hours after meeting with the envoy in Belgrade. Kostunica denounced the plan as ''illegitimate.''

In Pristina, Kosovo's provincial capital, President Fatmir Sejdiu said he and other leaders anticipated the prospect of ''Kosovo becoming an independent state,'' and pledged to guarantee the rights and security of its 100,000-member Serb minority.

Yet the mood was muted in the province, where the ethnic Albanian majority has long pressed for outright independence and fought a bloody war with Serbia in the late 1990s.

''It's good, but we're a bit reserved. It wasn't called independence and it allows for the Serb minority, which accounts for 5 percent, to hold lots of power,'' said Lutfi Maloku, 40, an ethnic Albanian technician.

''What Ahtisaari described is a sovereign state, an independent state. However, this document does not entail all our expectations, all our demands, what belongs to us,'' said Kosovo's prime minister, Agim Ceku. ''We will do everything so that his final document at the Security Council reflects in its entirety the will of Kosovo's people.''

Describing his proposal as a draft compromise subject to change, Ahtisaari said he would invite the rival sides to meet again on Feb. 13 for negotiations. He said he hoped to be able to present a package to the Security Council — which will have the final say on Kosovo's future status — by the end of March.

Kosovo has been a U.N. protectorate since 1999, when NATO airstrikes stopped Serbia's crackdown on separatist ethnic Albanian rebels. Nearly 10,000 ethnic Albanians were killed in the Serbian onslaught, and nearly 1 million were forced to flee their homes.