Hearing raises complex issues of final status of Kosovo

Published: 2005-05-19

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- As the U.N. Security Council prepared to begin discussions of the future of Kosovo, witnesses at a May 18 congressional hearing tried to define just how delicate and complex the situation is for the former region of Yugoslavia that has been a U.N. protectorate for six years. Kosovo has remained under U.N. protection since the end of a 1999 U.S. and NATO bombing campaign to stop the Serbian government from forcing the region's ethnic Albanians to leave the country. The Security Council meetings are expected to lead to a formal study of the situation, followed by a series of talks about the permanent status of the region. Kosovo is physically within the boundaries of the republic of Serbia, although some of its governmental functions, such as policing, are increasingly being handled within Kosovo itself. Among the issues complicating discussions of Kosovo's future are continuing poverty, unemployment and ethnic tensions, said witnesses who included a Catholic bishop and Catholic and Orthodox priests.

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