Kosovo's president Fatmir Sejdiu says the six-point plan backed by the United Nations on November 26 represents a challenge for Pristina but will not lead to Kosovo's partition.

"During the whole process of negotiations on the six point plan, Pristina was ignored," Sejdiu lamented during an interview for Kosovo's public television network, RTK.

He added that Pristina's authorities were ignored by Andrew Ladley, the UN mediator who directly negotiated the conditions for the deployment of the European Union's law-and-order mission, EULEX, to Kosovo.

According to Sejdiu, `reconfiguration' - the term used by the UN to wrap up its mission in Kosovo - really does means termination of the current UN mission and the deployment of EULEX.

On November 26, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted secretary-general Ban Ki-moon's report on wrapping up the world body's mission in Kosovo and begin the handover to a EU mission. Read more: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/15115/

The six-point plan for the deployment of EULEX, as Ban's recommendations are called, were initially opposed by Kosovo, which unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in February and has been recognised by most EU member states, because the plan is based on UN Security Council Resolution 1244.

This resolution, passed at the end of the 1998-1999 conflict between Serb forces and Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority, refers to Kosovo as Serbia's southern province, not as an independent state.

Serbia insists that the EU cannot deploy a new civilian mission in Kosovo to replace the UN administration unless the mission is neutral in status and does not put into action the plan of former UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari - which envisages internationally-supervised independence for Kosovo.

Belgrade also insists that the mission must be confirmed by the UN Security Council, in which it has a strong ally with veto power - Russia.

The plan envisages the gradual replacement of the administrative UN mission in Kosovo, UNMIK, which has been in the province since 1999, with an EU civilian mission of police and court officials.

Pristina had presented its own rival four-point plan which calls for the deployment of EULEX, according to the plan stated in Kosovo's independence declaration, the Kosovo constitution, and the Ahtisaari plan.

Source: Balkan Insight