January 22, 2006	Sunday	Zilhaj 21, 1426

PRISTINA, Jan 21: Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova died of lung cancer on Saturday, leaving a leadership vacuum for ethnic Albanians on the eve of talks to secure the independence from Serbia that he championed.

His death came just days before the United Nations was due to begin direct negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina to decide whether Kosovo’s 90-percent ethnic Albanian majority wins independence or remains part of Serbia as Belgrade insists.

Wednesday’s talks would be rescheduled for some time in early February, the UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari said.

“President Rugova died at home in Pristina surrounded by his close family, aides and American doctors. He passed away ... after fighting this illness with great bravery and extraordinary morality,” said a statement from the Kosovo presidency.

Mr Rugova, 61, had been under care at his villa in the capital, Pristina, since being diagnosed with lung cancer last year at a US military hospital in Germany. US doctors were supervising his treatment.

He died without seeing the independence he worked for most of his adult life. But virtually all of the people he led today demand self-determination from Serbia and many flocked to his home on Saturday to pay their respects.

NO SUCCESSOR: Mr Rugova has no clear successor in his faction-ridden Democratic League of Kosovo and no plans for his replacement at the helm of the Kosovo negotiating team have been announced.

Western diplomats have expressed concern at the prospect of a messy power struggle at such a crucial moment.

“It’s not the (death) itself, it’s the political wrangling that comes after that’s the issue,” said a senior Western diplomat. “There was ‘nobody who’s been designated, no natural Number Two, no one who’s been groomed” to succeed Mr Rugova.

Kosovo Serb leader Oliver Ivanovic said Mr Rugova left ‘a big gap in the political scene and I’m afraid a struggle among Albanian political parties will start right now’.

Tributes came from the United Nations and the European Union. French President Jacques Chirac praised the ‘historical role and political courage that drove Ibrahim Rugova to defend the democratic rights of the Kosovan people’.—Reuters