The President of Albania, Rexep Mejdani, has said that there can be no permanent solution to the crisis in the Serbian province of Kosovo as long as Kosovo remains a part of the Serb Republic.

Mr Mejdani, who was speaking in the Bulgarian capital Sofia, said the dispute had to be solved within a wider territorial framework, taking account of what he called the political realities of the Balkans.

President Mejdani is in Sofia to discuss plans to build road, railroad and pipeline links between Bulgaria's Black Sea port of Burgas through Macedonia to Albania's Adriatic port of Vlore.