U.N. urges clear roadmap for Kosovo

By Shaban Buza

PRISTINA, Serbia (Reuters) - The U.N. governor in Kosovo called on major powers on Wednesday to set a clear roadmap to the final status of Serbia's breakaway province, whose independence bid is blocked by Russia.

Joachim Ruecker told journalists on his return from Brussels that he had warned the European Union of the dangers of further delaying a decision the people of Kosovo had been led to expect by last October, after nearly eight years under U.N. rule.

"I stressed that there is a lot of anxiety and tension and people need and deserve clarity on status and also on the status process," Ruecker said.

"It will be very helpful if we would have something like roadmap or timetable on the way forward, something more than just an announcement of the time of engagement," Ruecker said.

Envoys of the Contact Group -- the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Russia -- resolved at a meeting in Vienna late on Wednesday to set up a new round of Kosovo talks, but failed to agree on a deadline for the negotiations.

A diplomatic source close to the talks said Russia and the United States agreed to a German proposal under which a "troika" of a single EU envoy, Russia and the United States would oversee a new round of shuttle diplomacy between Belgrade and Pristina.

While those new talks should begin soon, possibly in August, Russia did not accept a western deadline of 120 days for the talks, but insisted at the Vienna meeting they be open-ended.

Serbia and Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders talked for 13 months under U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari with no compromise, and there is still no glimmer of a way out of that deadlock.