Kosovo President Rugova dies

Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova, architect of the ethnic Albanian drive to win independence from Serbia, died on Saturday, four months after announcing that he had lung cancer, said his spokesman Muhamet Hamiti. The PM had called an urgent Cabinet session at 3 pm, said sources.

The death was a few days before the United Nations was to begin a Belgrade-Pristina negotiation to decide whether Kosovo’s 90 per cent ethnic Albanians should be independent. Rugova, 61, has no definite successor in his faction-ridden Democratic League of Kosovo or head of the Kosovo negotiating team, which he was expected to lead. Western diplomats are worried about a possible messy power struggle.

The Sorbonne-educated literature professor was the architect of the decade-old passive resistance since 1989, when former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic stripped the province of autonomy.