Kosovo will stake its claim to independence today at talks between Serbs and ethnic Albanians.
At the one-day meeting, the international status of the majority Albanian province - independence or autonomy - will be put on the agenda of a UN-led mediation process that began in February.
Martti Ahtisaari
The presidents and prime ministers of both sides will talk face-to-face for the first time since the West intervened in 1999 to drive out Serb forces accused of ethnic cleansing and the United Nations took control.
Results are unlikely, given what diplomats say is an unbridgeable chasm between the two sides. Ninety percent of Kosovo's two million people are Albanians who reject any return to Serb rule, while Serbia sees Kosovo as forever its "Jerusalem".
UN chief mediator Martti Ahtisaari has played down hopes of a breakthrough today. He is working to a year-end deadline set by the West for proposing a settlement, but six months of lower-level direct talks on the rights of the 100,000 Serbs still in Kosovo have brought few signs of compromise.
The United States is pushing for a deal in 2006, concerned that delay could spark fresh violence in a territory patrolled by 17,000 Nato soldiers. Russia, a veto holder in the UN Security Council and traditional ally of Serbia, has warned against any "artificial timetable".
Nato bombed the Serbs for 78 days in 1999 to halt civilian killings and ethnic cleansing by forces under late Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic in a two-year war with separatist guerrillas. Some 10,000 Albanians died, 800,000 were expelled.
Serbs consider Kosovo the cradle of Serbdom, home to scores of centuries-old Orthodox churches.