Mark Lattimer

Kosovo, one of the smallest territories in Europe, is casting a large shadow on the diplomatic landscape as the deadline nears for determining its international status. "My sense is that the clock is running out on the issue," says Charles Kupchan, a senior fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations and former U.S. National Security Council director for European Affairs. The United Nations set a deadline of today for resolving the political status of the Serbian province, which has been internationally administered since NATO ousted the forces of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in 1999 to halt an attack on Kosovo's mainly ethnic Albanian population.