UN Security Council to send mission to Kosovo

United Nations, Apr 13: The UN Security Council has decided to send a mission to Kosovo at the end of April before it decides on the province's future, the council president said.

The trip would include ambassadors or their deputies from the 15 council nations before the body considers a resolution on a plan by UN mediator Martti Ahtisaari, who last month recommended supervised independence for Kosovo, the last major dispute following the breakup of Yugoslavia.

British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry, the current council president, told reporters after council consultations that the mission would go to Kosovo at the end of the last week in April, led by Belgium's UN ambassador, Johan Verbeke.

Kosovo has been under UN administration since 1999, when NATO launched bombing raids to stop Serb forces from driving out the province's ethnic Albanians, who comprise 90 per cent of the population.

Serbia, backed by Russia, opposes Kosovo's independence, saying it would violate the United Nations' own rules of respecting boundaries of a sovereign state.

The Ahtisaari plan would give independence to the ethnic Albanian majority but provide for a European Union overseer, an EU police mission alongside the 16,500-strong NATO peace force and broad self-government for the remaining 100,000 Serbs.

Reuters