Recalcitrance of unexpected intensity marred the latest Vienna-hosted negotiation round on Kosovo.

The Serb and Kosovar leaders were reluctant to heed to each other’s positions even after the troika of mediators from the EU, US and Russia presented the sides with a list of 14 principles which were to serve as the basis for status resolution of the UN-administered breakaway region.

All the more, the sides remained steadfast on their positions despite the looming December 10 deadline, the date when the troika is due to report to the UN on progress made on Kosovo in the past 120 days of talks on Kosovo’s status.

The international mediators have been supervising Kosovo-Serbia talks since August this year.

Kosovo leadership is as united as ever on calling for unilateral independence on December 10 with the president, prime minister, political parties and public forming a rock-solid unity on the matter.

As earlier reported, the country is now fully committed to the option of a unilateral declaration of independence. Kosovo would be seeking to form an independent state through a broad interpretation of United Nations Resolution 1244. Broad interpretation would allow the chairperson of the UN Security Council to circumvent a vote on Kosovo’s status and, thus, avert the opposition of Russia, Serbia’s main supporter in international institutions on the issue.

Serbia, for its part, remains steadfast in its intention to tailor Kosovo’s status after the so-called “loose integration” model, typified by Hong Kong. Under the proposal, Kosovo would have all the elements of an independent state that would have the right to become member of international institutions, both political and financial formations alike. Serbia, however, would be in charge of all military and top-tier state decision-making.

Under circumstances draining the will for consensus to a trickle, the troika has been keen on looking for alternatives.

In the first place, a source from the US state department told the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), a journalistic network with a focus on the Balkans, that his department was drafting a proposal for the postponement of talks on Kosovo’s status to 2020.

According to the paper provided by the said source on condition of anonymity, Kosovo is due to remain a UN-administered province for the next 12 years. And in 2020 the country, which has a mostly ethnic Albanian population, would decide its political fate on its own through a referendum.

In the meantime, both the EU and the US would funnel seven billion euro into Kosovo, both into the administration of the province and sector-by-sector revival. Hopes are that the massive aid package would aid the country’s ailing economy recover from the 1999 air bombardments and move toward a market economy of content citizens.

The money would be funnelled into Kosovo’s budget and would formally be treated as a “payoff for the country’s unresolved status”, the source was quoted as saying.

The source would not mention who the author of the document was nor any information on his position within the US state department.

The BIRN report is yet to get official confirmation and the official position of the US remains unchanged. As voiced by the head of the US Office in Pristina, Tania Kaidanow, the US is backing the Matti Ahtisaari plan to declare Kosovo an independent state.

Nevertheless, the country is undoubtedly in a stage of strategising new options as it attempts to grope to the exit from a stalemate on Kosovo. The means to exit this stalemate entail both the freeze of talks on Kosovo’s political status and an attempt to bridge differences with long-time opponents in international matters, Russia in particular. The two mechanisms cater for a final resolution through two solutions that the US has as of recently on board.

As the BIRN US state department source put it: “The US has two options: to recognise, together with a few other countries, Kosovo’s independence and to cause thereby many global and regional problems; or to drop formal independence for some years, relaxing tension in the region and boosting Kosovo’s economy.”

With regard to the first option, the source was quoted by BIRN as saying: “No country would normally be interested in helping Kosovo to such a high level, however this is what we call a ‘white peace’... Nobody would win politically; not the Albanians, the Serbs, Russia or the West.”

With the second option in hand, the US has opted for diplomatic means. Having Russia siding firmly with Serbia, the US announced on October 30 that it was ready to trade off a laxer stance on the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty, the document which has kept the political balance in Europe in post-Cold War times, for a softer Russian stance on Kosovo and Iran.

If the trade-off is pushed through, Kosovo would gain the status of independence through a vote of the UN Security Council. With Russia dropping its veto on Kosovo’s independence at the UN Security Council, even a broader readout of Resolution 1244 would be redundant.

The concessions form part of a complex reconciliatory package between the US and Russia, which apart from Kosovo, would seek bridging the differences on Iran within the framework of the UN Security Council.

The cook-up of new options ahead of the December 10 deadline, especially the new US option on Kosovo, has come to not a single party’s satisfaction.

Spokesperson for the ethnic Albanian negotiating team Skender Hyseni was quoted by BIRN as saying that the US draft proposal was unacceptable and that a freeze of talks on Kosovo for a 12-year period was out of the question.

The stance is all the more reaffirmed by unequivocal support from Albania, which recently unveiled plans to lobby for the Kosovar cause with the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC). Days ago, Albanian prime minister Sali Berisha said he would seek to influence the OIC to side en bloc with the declaration of independence for Kosovo through Egypt.

Berisha is said to have acquainted Egyptian foreign minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, while on a visit to Albania, with the Kosovo situation and to have asked that Egypt use its influence among Arab states to side Kosovo’s proclamation of unilateral independence.

Serbia, for its part, remained unyielding to plans for Kosovo “being amputated” from its territory.

The multi-sided array of actions seeking the ultimate resolution to a nine-year deadlock seems nowhere near an end. Against this background, the next round of talks on Kosovo, which is to take place November 5 in Vienna, is doomed to another failure. Yet much room for surprise is opening ahead of the December 10 talks. With the new US strategies unfolding, the response of the remainder of the parties is hard to predict. If Russia opens up for options, the EU, Kosovo, Serbia might also head for a reshuffle in positions. Yet for the time being the situation is the one-on-one illustration that a coalition for the willing is yet in the making.