The United States is working on a strategy to resolve the future status of Kosovo in an effort to stabilize the security environment in the Balkans, the U.S. State Department said Tuesday, dpa reported. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns plans to lay out the U.S. strategy during public appearances this week, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. Burns is to testify before Congress and present a speech at Washington's Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Ethnic violence between minority Serbians in Kosovo and majority Albanians has been on the rise, and Boucher said the security situation in the U.N.-administered Serb province is not "a good one now". "We are all looking for a peaceful region, a peaceful region in the Balkans that can be integrated into Europe more broadly, that can be part of a peaceful continent," Boucher said. The United Nations has run Kosovo for six years following a NATO military campaign aimed at halting Serbian aggression after now- deposed Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic sent Serb forces into the province. --More 2328 Local Time 2028 GMT
