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'Schedule'' stops Kosovo premier attending U.N. Security Council

Pristina (dpa) - Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj said Friday he would not attend the next week's session of the U.N. Security Council on Kosovo-related affairs, citing an "eventful schedule''.

Haradinaj, who is under U.N. war crimes tribunal investigation for alleged atrocities committed during the 1998-99 war, was asked to attend by Soren Jessen-Petersen, head of the U.N. Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).

"Since I would not be allowed to address the Security Council, and considering my busy schedule - I decided not to travel to New York,'' Pristina media quoted Haradinaj as saying.

The security council is to discuss development in the internationally administrated province on February 24. There has been widespread criticism inside Kosovo of Secretary General Kofi Annan's latest quarterly report.

Annan stressed that Kosovo had made too little progress in setting up democratic institutions and reaching other goals for the international community to be able to assess its long-term status.

The international community has set out a list of standards, including the protection of minorities, rule of law and human rights issues, which must be fulfilled before the start of talks on Kosovo's final status.

However, Annan - in the first of series of assessments that will eventually lead to the start of talks - warned the ethnic Albanian majority in Kosovo that local Serbs "live in fear'', and that ethnic divides are becoming even greater in the region.

The Pristina government rejected Annan's observations as "untrue and unrealistic'', and some local leaders even called for the U.N. mission to end as soon as possible in order to prevent violence.

Belgrade strongly opposes the Albanian demands for independence and the province is still nominally part of Serbia. But Western diplomats believe that there is no way that some two million Kosovo Albanians would ever willingly return to Serbian rule.

dpa ra sc

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