The UN refugee agency called today for greater efforts to ensure the survival of Serbs and other minorities in Kosovo, a UN-governed Yugoslav province with a separatist Albanian majority.
The plight of the non-Albanian populations in Kosovo remains most worrying, said Mr Eric Morris, special envoy in Yugoslavia of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Mr Morris, speaking after meeting Yugoslav Serb leaders including President Vojislav Kostunica, said the status quo in the province was unacceptable.
Greater efforts must be made to ensure the survival of the non-Albanian communities in Kosovo and therefore lay the basis for the future return of displaced from these communities, he told a news conference.
According to UNHCR estimates last year, some 200,000 Serbs and other minorities fled Kosovo after Yugoslav forces withdrew in June 1999 following an 11-week NATO air war on Yugoslavia.
Those remaining have been the targets of numerous attacks by Kosovo Albanians avenging years of repressive Serbian rule.
Earlier this week, Belgrade authorities said a Serbian interior ministry employee was killed in a bombing which shook the centre of the Kosovo capital Pristina.
In one of the worst incidents since the conflict, a bus bombing in northern Kosovo killed 11 Serbs in February.
Kostunica this week demanded concrete steps from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to protect Kosovo's non-Albanians.
Yugoslav Interior Minister Zoran Zivkovic accused Kosovo's UN administration today of unwillingness and lack of readiness to confront ethnic Albanian extremist violence.
Mr Morris said the possibility of refugee returns to Kosovo was linked to the well-being of non-Albanians still there, including other minorities such as Roma gypsies and Egyptians.
To improve their security, Mr Morris said these minority communities should participate in emerging self-governance institutions in Kosovo.