The US special envoy, Mr Richard Holbrooke, returned to Belgrade last night after a frustrating day spent urging ethnic Albanian political leaders in Kosovo to bury their differences in the search for peace.
"Local politics in Kosovo has been degraded over the last decade because Belgrade took away the legitimacy of any of its structures," Mr Holbrooke said as he left Pristina, Kosovo's capital, for the flight to Belgrade.
"The ethnic Albanian leadership is confronting this crisis of war or peace without any coherence. Right now the Albanian side cannot speak with a single voice."
Mr Holbrooke spent the weekend shuttling between Belgrade, where he repeatedly met President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia, and Pristina, where he talked to the fractious ethnic Albanian political leadership.
Travelling with Holbrooke was the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Mr Nikolai Afanasyevsky, who has also been deeply involved in trying to prevent the Kosovo conflict escalating into a wider Balkan war.
The two men announced that an international observer mission would begin in Kosovo today. Its goal is to enhance outside knowledge of conditions on the ground inside Kosovo and build confidence internally.
Mr Holbrooke and Mr Afanasyevsky made clear that they back Mr Ibrahim Rugova as the leading ethnic Albanian politician. The Sorbonne-educated intellectual is under attack from more radical elements within Kosovo. Mr Rugova heads Kosovo's largest ethnic Albanian political party and was twice elected president of the self-styled "Republic of Kosovo".
Kosovo is a southern province of Serbia, which along with Montenegro makes up the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia; 90 per cent of Kosovo's 1.8 million people are ethnic Albanians, most of whom want independence after a decade of harsh Belgrade rule.
Yugoslavia's ultra-nationalist deputy Prime Minister, Mr Vojislav Seselj, said in Pristina that the activities of ethnic Albanian separatists could spark a civil war.
"If activities of the terrorist so-called Liberation Army of Kosovo continue and the authorities continue to show restraint and tolerance, can we exclude the possibility that Serbs form their own army?" Mr Seselj said, according to a report by Tanjug news agency.
Mr Rugova's message of non-violent political protest is being drowned out by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), an ethnic Albanian insurgency that has taken nominal control of at least 30 per cent of the province. KLA actions are undermining Mr Rugova's political and moral authority, as are challenges by rival politicians trying to seize the moment to install themselves as his successor.
"Rugova is clearly the pre-eminent leader, but the legitimacy of his assertion to be President of Kosovo is challenged not only by Belgrade but by rival politicians and the KLA," Mr Holbrooke said. "This is the tragedy of Kosovo politics that makes Bosnian politics look simple by comparison."
"Some change in the current status of Kosovo within the boundaries, the international boundaries, of Yugoslavia is essential in our view," he told reporters after a final meeting with Mr Milosevic yesterday.