Bomb scare prompts UN to evacuate staff from Kosovo headquarters
Associated Press Worldstream - October 10, 2007, Wednesday 3:32 PM GMT

PRISTINA Serbia - United Nations staff in Kosovo were told to leave their offices in the capital, Pristina, Wednesday, after security warned that a suspicious device was attached to a vehicle, officials said.

The vehicle, belonging to the U.N. police in the province, was stopped while driving through the gates of the organizations headquarters in the capital Pristina.

"We don't know what kind of a device it is, but we've secured the perimeter around the vehicle," police spokesman, Veton Elshani said.

He said NATO's de-miners were called in to investigate and check whether the device contained explosives.

Kosovo is formally part of Serbia but has been under U.N. administration since 1999 after NATO bombed Serbia to halt a crackdown on separatist ethnic Albanians.

About 16,000 NATO peacekeepers serve alongside over 2,000 U.N. policemen in securing the province.

The UN has in the past been targeted by ethnic Albanian extremists demanding that the province become independent from Serbia and charging that the U.N. is an obstacle to independence.

Kosovo's leaders are engaged in talks with Serbia to settle the province's future status. International envoys guiding the talks are scheduled to report on progress to U.N. Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, by Dec. 10.

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