Kosovo Status Process - Background

Background

Kosovo is the subject of a long-running political and territorial dispute between the Serbian (and previously, the Yugoslav) government and Kosovo's largely Albanian population.

At the end of the Kosovo War in 1999, the UN Security Council adopted United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244, which placed Kosovo under transitional UN administration, demanded a withdrawal of Serbian forces from Kosovo and envisioned an eventual UN-facilitated political process to determine whether Kosovo would become independent or remain part of Serbia. In October 2005, a UN-commissioned report written by Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide recommended that the status process should begin, arguing that "all sides need clarity with regard to the future status of Kosovo". The Security Council issued a Presidential Statement in October 2005 to endorse Eide's conclusions and authorize the launch of a status process.

International negotiations began in 2006 to determine the final status of Kosovo, as envisaged under Resolution 1244. While Serbia's continued sovereignty over Kosovo was recognized by the international community at that time, a majority of the province's population sought independence.

The UN-backed talks, led by UN Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari, began in February 2006. While progress was made on technical matters, both parties remained diametrically opposed on the question of independence. In February 2007, Ahtisaari delivered a draft status settlement proposal to leaders in Belgrade and Pristina, the basis for a draft UN Security Council Resolution which proposes "supervised independence" for the province. As of early July 2007 a draft resolution, backed by the United States and the European Union members of the Security Council, had been rewritten four times to try to accommodate Russian concerns that such a resolution would undermine the principle of state sovereignty. Russia, which holds veto power in the Security Council as one of five permanent members, had stated that it would not support any resolution which was not acceptable to both Belgrade and Kosovo Albanians. While most observers had, at the beginning of the talks, anticipated independence as the most likely outcome, others have suggested that a rapid resolution might not be preferable.

After many weeks of discussions at the UN, the United States and the European members of the Security Council formally "discarded" a draft resolution backing Ahtisaari's proposal on 20 July 2007, having failed to secure Russian backing, and instead proposed a new period of talks.