The first face-to-face talks on the future status of Kosovo, set to begin next week, have been postponed following the death of Kosovo President Ibrahim Rugova.
A United Nations spokesperson said the meeting in Vienna between ethnic Albanian negotiators and Serbia authorities from Belgrade would be temporarily delayed until early February.
UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari saying the delay was 'out of respect'.
Mr Rugova, who was 61, was diagnosed with lung cancer in September 2005 and had been undergoing treatment at his residence in Pristina.
The pacifist leader of Kosovo's Albanians was born in 1944. Just after the war his father and grandfather were executed by Yugoslav communists.
Ibrahim Rugova studied linguistics at the Sorbonne, in Paris, and became a professor of Albanian literature and a writer.
He was a member of the Yugoslav communist party, but was expelled after joining others in demanding changes to Serbia's constitution.
He was elected to head the first non-communist party in Kosovo, the Democratic League of Kosova, founded just after Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic had abolished Kosovo's autonomy.
Mr Rugova was elected as Kosovo President in 2002.
