The UN plan outlining Kosovo's path to independence remains as the basis for talks on the future of Serbia's breakaway province, German and Macedonian defence ministers said Thursday in Skopje, according to DPA. "We agreed that Martti Ahtisaari's plan is a good basis," German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung said in the Macedonian capital. The former Finnish president Ahtisaari revealed his plan early in 2007, after a year of futile talks between Serbia and Kosovo Albanian leaders. The plan was backed by the West, but blocked in the United Nations by Russia, which supports Serbia's claim on the province. Jung added that he and his Macedonian counterpart, Lazar Elenovski, also agreed that the partition of Kosovo along ethnic lines would be a "wrong step." Jung arrived in Macedonia just as Serbian and Kosovo Albanian negotiators in Vienna launched another, presumably last round of talks on the province, this time under the joint mediation of US, Russian and EU diplomats. Belgrade has rejected Ahtisaari's plan, saying that it would never give up Kosovo, while the Albanians, who make up a vast majority in the province, expect independence with diminishing patience. "We expect the finale of the talks on Kosovo within the framework of Martti Ahtisaari's plan and the resolution (of the issue) before the end of the year," Elenovski said. Jung also praised the progress of defence reforms in Macedonia, a country which was on the verge of an ethnic war in 2001 but is today an aspiring NATO member. The insurgency of the Albanians was stopped through a NATO-brokered peace-and-reform deal. "You are on the right path," Jung said after meeting with Elenovski, who added that Macedonia "will not miss the historic chance to join NATO." Within his mini-tour of the region, Jung was also due to visit Albania on Thursday and Kosovo on Friday.
