Serbian prime minister hold talks with Kosovo leaders

The talks, taking place under U.N. mediation, are scheduled for Monday in the Austrian capital, Vienna, and will be the first time the two sides broach the topic of a final status for Kosovo, which the Serbs want to keep within their borders and Kosovo Albanians want to be independent.

Photo: Serbian prime minister hold talks with Kosovo leaders

Kostunica's spokesman, Srdjan Djuric, said that the prime minister will join President Boris Tadic on the Serbian delegation traveling to Vienna Monday.

Tadic had announced earlier this week during meetings with EU officials in Brussels that he intended to attend, while Kostunica remained undecided.

Serbia's leaders also have agreed to alternate in attending the following rounds of talks on Kosovo's future, Djuric said.

Kosovo's President Fatmir Sejdiu also said he will go to Vienna, but the rest of the team is to be named Friday during a meeting of the province's negotiating team, which groups Kosovo's president, its prime minister, two opposition leaders and the head of the assembly, the AP reports.

The two former warring sides are expected to present their views in the one-day meeting chaired by former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, the chief U.N. envoy for the status process.

Kosovo officially remains part of Serbia, but has been run by the United Nations and patrolled by international peacekeepers since a 1999 NATO aerial bombardment halted a Serb military crackdown on separatist ethnic Albanians.

Ethnic Albanian and Serbian officials have had a series of meetings since February dealing with technical issues, but Monday's conference would be the first involving top political leaders from both sides.