The international community would stay on in Kosovo for a long time to come whatever the outcome of the talks on the Serbian breakaway province, said Martti Ahtisaari, UN envoy on Kosovo future status talks, on Saturday.

    "Whatever the status is going to be, I think we all recognize that there is going to be a presence of the international community in Kosovo for quite some time to come," Ahtisaari, former Finnish president and veteran peace broker, told a press conference following meetings with Montenegrin leaders in Podgorica, capital of Montenegro.

    Ahtisaari embarked on his first tour of the Balkan region this week to launch the process of defining Kosovo's future status. He has visited Kosovo and Serbia in an effort to collect first-hand material about the situation.

    Kosovo is nominally part of Serbia-Montenegro, but it has been run by the United Nations and NATO since mid-1999. Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority is insisting on independence from Serbia, while Belgrade wants to retain sovereignty over Kosovo.

    Ahtisaari said that he expected the direct talks between Belgrade and Pristina to start early next year.

    "In order for us to make progress in these talks, it is important to make progress on the (democratic) standards, and that requires not only the actions and measures by the Kosovo Albanians, but also the cooperation of minority population, including the Serbs," Ahtisaari said.

    There are some 100,000 Kosovo Serbs, living in isolated enclaves. They have been boycotting the province's institutions, complaining of harassment by majority ethnic Albanians.

    Late on Saturday, Ahtisaari traveled to Albania where he met with Albanian leaders. From Albania, Ahtisaari will travel to Macedonia, which also has a sizable restive ethnic Albanian minority. 

Source: Xinhua