Ethnic Albanian and Serbian officials have shown no signs of compromise in the lead-up to a key meeting of the UN Security Council on Friday to discuss the future of the southern Serbian province of Kosovo.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is expected to praise progress towards democratic standards in the UN-administered province, the scene of bloody fighting between Serbian troops and ethnic Albanian separatists in 1998-1999.
The Greek foreign ministry on Wednesday said Annan would also voice concern over the security situation and the presence of "extremist elements", while urging dialogue between Belgrade and the ethnic Albanian leadership.
The meeting is expected to set the stage for a promised review of UN-set democratic standards ahead of the opening of talks, slated for later this year, on Kosovo's final status -- either independence or autonomy within Serbia.
Kosovo's plight has slipped off the international radar since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but for the people who live in this volatile region of southeastern Europe the stakes are as high as ever.
"The UN Security Council meeting should clear the path to the process which will bring independence to Kosovo," said a spokesman for Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova, of the province's ethnic Albanian majority.
"We expect the council to recognize the progress which was made in Kosovo and begin an all-inclusive assessment which we decribe as a closing of the process of achieving Kosovo's independence."
Kosovo has been under UN administration since NATO intervened in 1999 to end a crackdown by Serbian forces on ethnic Albanian separatist guerrillas.
While the ethnic Albanians talk about independence as a fait accompli, Belgrade insists the most it will concede is full autonomy and has recently stepped up calls for an "immediate dialogue" with the Kosovo Albanians.
Serbia's pointman for Kosovo, Nebojsa Covic, ridiculed suggestions that the province and its UN administrators had made any genuine progress toward multi-ethnic democracy, citing ethnic violence against the Serb minority.
"What standards that have been fulfilled are we talking about exactly? What standards... when the only difference between these enclaves and concentration camps is that the enclaves do not have gas chambers?" he said, referring to the scattered Serb-dominated villages which require constant NATO protection.
Violent anti-Serb riots in March last year killed 19 people, underscoring Belgrade's claims that the UN has failed to provide a safe environment for the return of some 200,000 Serb refugees.
"The basic rights of Serbs and other non-Albanians have not been protected, nor have the standards of free movement. An elementary protection of their property does not exist and Serbs are open to random acts of violence," the Serbian government said in a recent statement.
Washington has said the international community must not let Kosovo slip off the agenda.
"Failure to secure a multi-ethnic Kosovo would be a failure of our efforts over the last six years, and indeed the last decade," US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns said last week.
Kosovo's final status "must be based on multi-ethnicity, with full respect for human rights, including the right of all refugees and displaced persons to return to their homes in safety".