Global Policy Forum

By Irwin Arieff

Kosovo's new U.N. governor has said his top goal was to begin transferring his administrative powers to the Yugoslav province's interim government elected in November. But it was too soon to begin talking about whether Kosovo would end up independent from Belgrade, said Michael Steiner, a veteran German diplomat and Balkans expert who is due to take up his new duties next Thursday.

"We have to set the train in motion," he said in his first meeting with reporters since his appointment was announced three weeks ago. "We have to transfer authority from UNMIK (U.N. Mission in Kosovo) carefully, step by step, and not falling into certain pitfalls, and transfer the authority to the elected interim government." Steiner will be the third U.N. administrator in Kosovo since the United Nations took over running the Yugoslav province in June 1999 after an 11-week NATO bombing campaign in response to Belgrade's crackdown on ethnic Albanians.

The first U.N. administrator was Bernard Kouchner, France's health minister. The second, Hans Haekkerup of Denmark, resigned unexpectedly in December. Steiner said he would start out consulting with the Kosovo people and their leaders about their hopes for the future.

Integrating Kosovo into Europe was crucial, "but there is a price to that, and the price is that we need to establish the rule of law, functioning institutions, a democratic political culture, a free press and a sound economic basis," he said. The one area where responsibility could not yet be taken out of the hands of the international community was security, he said. "We have to participate in the production of stability and security in the region."

A NATO-led force known as the Kosovo Force, or KFOR, is responsible for security. Steiner, who will be taking on the sensitive task of negotiating between Kosovo's minority Serbs and its various Albanian factions agitating for independence from Belgrade, said it was not yet time to discuss Kosovo's final status.

"The outcome is open," he said. "The question of when we arrive at discussing this issue will largely depend on the showing of the Kosovars." After November's general election, a new assembly and government were supposed to take over day-to-day administration of Kosovo while the United Nations retained overall authority.

But the main political parties so far have been unable to agree on a president, leaving the province without self-rule. Steiner said he was ready to help end the deadlock over a president, "but in the end that is the task of those who have been elected." "It is slowly now becoming urgent that we have a government," he said.

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