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Annan Wants Talks on Kosovo

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said Friday that he intends to start negotiations to determine whether the predominantly Muslim territory of Kosovo should gain independence from or remain an autonomous part of Serbia-Montenegro, a remnant of the former Yugoslavia. Annan told reporters in Switzerland that he will appoint a special envoy to help lead the "final status" talks on Kosovo`s future.

The U.N. case for talks was outlined in a report distributed to the 15-nation Security Council on Friday by Annan`s special envoy, Kai Eide of Norway. Its release sets the stage for contentious debate between Kosovo`s pro-independence ethnic Albanians, who make up 90 percent of the population, and the Serbs, who are reluctant to abandon their claim to a province that played a central role in their history.

The U.N. Security Council indefinitely put off a decision on Kosovo`s status in 1999 because of concerns that it would fuel greater conflict in a Balkans region that had been wracked by a decade of civil wars. But officials say that many of the region`s trouble spots are now relatively stable, providing an opportunity to resolve the Kosovo crisis.