The European Union (EU) on Sunday urged Belgrade and Pristina to speed up talks on the future status of Kosovo as the two sides began their second round of direct meeting in Brussels.
It would not be "realistic" to hope for an agreement to be reached during the talks, but "we will strongly encourage" movement forward, EU special envoy on Kosovo Wolfgang Ischinger told reporters before the start of the talks at the EU headquarters Sunday afternoon.
"We must get them to recognize the fact that they are too far apart and there is quite a distance to be covered," said the envoy.
Ischinger stressed that he hopes leaders from both sides will "not just sit there and waste time."
The so-called "Troika-facilitated direct talks" were set after the feuding parties failed to end the impasse when they met last month on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York.
The troika, made up of the United States, Russia and the European Union, will have to report the outcome of the negotiations to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon by Dec. 10, 2007.
The Brussels meeting will provide an opportunity for the two sides "to continue to develop their respective proposals and engage in discussions on the basis of these presentations," the EU said in a press release ahead of the talks.
The face-to-face talks will be held between Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic and Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu and Prime Minister Agim Ceku.
It will be followed by separate meetings between the Troika and individual delegations.
Kosovo's Albanian leaders have threatened to declare independence unilaterally if no agreement can be reached by the deadline.
Kosovo, which is Serbia's southern breakaway province, has been run by the UN since mid-1999, when NATO troops drove out Serbian forces fighting ethnic Albanian separatists.
Serbia has insisted that Kosovo is an integral part of its territory while the ethnic Albanians, who account for 90 percent of the province's 2 million population, have said they will accept nothing but complete independence.
Washington said in case Belgrade and Pristina fail to reach an agreement by Dec. 10, it believes UN mediator Martti Ahtisaari's plan is the best.
In March, Ahtisaari, the former Finnish president, submitted a draft plan envisioning internationally supervised independence for Kosovo to the UN Security Council.
The plan, supported by the United States and many western countries, was robustly opposed by Serbia and its ally Russia, which has a powerful veto in the Security Council.
Source: Xinhua
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