Kosovo talks must be under UN mandate

He was reacting to yesterday's statement from EU's Contact Group Troika envoy, Wolfgang Ischinger, who hinted at the possibility of holding an international conference on Kosovo.

"The entire negotiating process started in the UN Security Council and it will end there as well," Tadic said.

"The modalities of the negotiating process are dictated by Belgrade, Pristina and the international factors. And I would like to stress that the UN Security Council is the sole international structure under the auspices of which the negotiating process can legitimately and legally unfold," Serbian President concluded.

Also on Monday, Minister for Kosovo Slobodan Samardzic said that speculation on the holding of an international conference on Kosovo's status was "completely unsubstantiated."

"Speculation of an international conference is completely unsubstantiated, because that would in a way move the entire status resolution process off the track it is now on," Samardzic said.

He also said the UN was a framework that "can, should and must" find a solution for the Kosovo issue, "on which the state policy fully relies."

"That is why it should be clearly said that the ongoing process has nothing to do with any kind of international conference, it is a process organized by the troika on behalf of the Contact Group, within the UN," the minister said.

Samardzic said Belgrade would not accept any other process that would resolve the Kosovo issue, other than the one including the UN and its Security Council and Resolution 1244.

According to him, Belgrade will continue and finish the process as it started - within the UN, with a decision that will be backed by the Security Council.

The minister said he believed Ischinger had actually been referring to a negotiating conference such as the ones that had already taken place in New York and previously with Ahtisaari in Vienna.

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