Bogged down on Kosovo

Vienna

Serbian and Kosovar leaders met for the first time this week, at an international conference on the status of Kosovo that went nowhere. The republic, administered by the U.N., is still technically a province of Serbia, four years after NATO expelled marauding Serbian troops who were trying to drive out the ethnic Albanian Kosovars. The former enemies refused to shake hands, and neither side budged from its position. Serbia still wants sovereignty over the province, while Kosovo is demanding full independence. The European officials who brokered the meeting said that just getting the Serbs and Kosovars to sit across a table was progress. “Did we expect anything spectacular?” asked E.U. External Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten. “No. They got into the same room and started talking.”