UN special envoy on Kosovo future status talks, Martti Ahtisaari, arrived in the provincial capital of Pristina on Monday afternoon to open talks on the future status of the ethnically-divided Serbian province of Kosovo, said reports reaching Belgrade from Pristina.

Ahtisaari, a former Finnish president, started his meeting with chief of the UN mission in Kosovo Soren Jessen-Petersen upon his arrival in Pristina, the official Tanjug news agency reported.

Ahtisaari was welcomed in Pristina by a group of pro-independence ethnic Albanian demonstrators who were carrying banners with "No negotiations" slogan, said the reports, adding that the police reacted swiftly by dispersing the demonstrators.

Kosovo is nominally still part of Serbia, but has been under UN administration for more than six years since mid-1999.

Serbia is hoping to retain sovereignty over Kosovo, considered by the Serbs to be the cradle of their statehood and religion. But Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority is demanding outright independence instead of maximum autonomy.

During the two-day visit, Ahtisaari is expected to meet a Kosovo negotiating team led by President Ibrahim Rugova and Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi.

Ahtisaari also plans to visit Belgrade, Skopje and Tirana in the first fact-finding mission this week.

The status talks are initially to be held in a form of shuttle diplomacy between Belgrade and Pristina, before the two sides become ready to sit at one table and begin direct talks about whether Kosovo will become independent or remain part of Serbia.

"The object of this first trip is to listen to the parties, collect impressions," Ahtisaari has said.

(Xinhua News Agency November 22, 2005)