Breakdown of the Kosovo negotiations

"It would be an exaggeration to describe the final meeting in Vienna as negotiations," writes Wieland Schneider on the failure of the Kosovo negotiations. "Because even if no one admitted it openly, one thing was clear to everyone from the very start: the Kosovo talks were not about negotiating Kosovo's future status. They were about guaranteeing the survival of the Serbian minority in what is likely to be an independent Kosovo in future... The Viennese Kosovo show this weekend was just a prelude to the big showdown in the UN Security Council. This is where Ahtisaari's plan will be discussed and the future of Kosovo decided. Moscow is acting with a renewed confidence there, and has no intention of approving plans for Kosovo's independence against Serbia's will, as the West had expected it to do. This means that yet again an important decision for the Balkans will be reduced to a proxy war between the major powers."

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