The eight Commissioners include two other minority community members (a Bosniac and a Turk), representatives from three political parties, the academia and non-governmental organizations, and an independent.

A press release issued by the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) after the IAC meeting also said that there will be nine alternates who can fill in when members are absent.

In other business, the IAC endorsed a draft regulation introducing excise taxes on heating oil, which was exempt from import duties during the winter.

The IAC was briefed on the current situation and plans for housing reconstruction by the co-heads of the Department of Reconstruction. It was also briefed on UNMIK's plans for the Trepca mine complex, which over the next 18 months will be prepared for the resumption of mining activities.

The IAC agreed to create a Trepca supervisory board chaired by Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Mr. Joly Dixon, which would include the co-heads of the Reconstruction department, representatives of the international peacekeeping force (KFOR) and experts nominated by the Kosovo members of the IAC.

Following the meeting, the head of UNMIK, Dr. Bernard Kouchner, said that the most immediate concern at Trepca was the potential for flooding. The European Union was being approached to discuss funding for a flood control project, he said.

Kosovo refugees

In an open letter, he said the host countries should allow them to return at a pace that would allow refugee and humanitarian agencies to provide the necessary support.

Dr. Kouchner appealed to host governments to "abide by the spirit as well as the letter" of the understanding they had entered into with the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) last year, which called for an orderly return of refugees once the winter was over.

"We already have problems with too many arriving simultaneously and with lack of regard for the dangers to ethnic minorities," he said. Dr. Kouchner also urged host authorities to "minimize" forced returns, especially of those who are socially or ethnically vulnerable and those with a history of violence.

Dr. Kouchner said an influx of refugees will put at risk the fragile institutions set up to provide social welfare and would "tarnish" the efforts to restore stability and law and order in Kosovo. He warned that it was crucial to put things right quickly, "otherwise the tens of thousands of returnees expected this year will swamp the capacity to absorb them," he said.

Communities have already been greatly stretched by the large influx of people without homes and jobs who came back voluntarily from the camps last summer. Nearly 90 per cent of the more than 850,000 Kosovo refugees who fled the province after fighting started in March returned by August last year, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

He told a press briefing that an ICTY forensic team of 15-20 people would begin work next week at "possibly three sites." International forensic teams would join it in early May. Some 300 sites are to be examined in four months, "a very ambitious schedule," the spokesman, Paul Risley, said.

Mr. Risley told journalists that no new numbers of exhumed bodies could be expected until autumn when the identification of bodies would be carried out by the Victims Recovery and Identification Commission of the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).

He said a new morgue near Orahovac, constructed with labour donated by the Dutch military detachment in Kosovo, would also be dedicated on Monday.

In her 10 November report to the UN Security Council, the ICTY 's chief prosecutor, Ms. Carla del Ponte said 2,108 bodies had been exhumed in Kosovo. That figure related to about one third of the 529 gravesites notified to the ICTY.

More than 11,000 deaths have been reported to the ICTY but only a fifth of these have been confirmed. Between 3,000 and 6,000 Kosovars, mostly Albanians are still missing or presumed dead, according to some estimates.

Randel Nojkic, Dragan Velic and Rada Trajkovic broke a six-month Serb boycott to join the KTC. This follows a decision earlier this month by the Serb National Council of Gracanica to participate in the Joint Interim Administrative Structure, which enables Kosovars to participate in the provisional administration of the territory.

The head of the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), Dr. Bernard Kouchner, told the media after the meeting that "everybody welcomed the return of the Serbs."

"We are now hoping the Romas will be the next to join. Then the KTC would represent all communities of Kosovo," he said.

The KTC was briefed on the security situation by UNMIK police commissioner, Sven Frederickson, and the deputy commander of the international peacekeeping force (KFOR), General Lemiere. They told the Council that Mitrovica was calm with 180 Kosovo Albanians having returned to the north part of the city and 12 Kosovo Serbs to the south side.

The officials said the second phase of the strategy for co-existence was being implemented, and the confidence zone was being expanded on both sides of the Ibar River to eventually encompass the entire city centre, creating an area where people can move, live and work safely.

The KTC also discussed the issue of missing persons, and condemned the practice of demanding payment for the release of prisoners from Serbian jails.

Some 450 of the volunteers will work with the Joint Registration Task Force of UNMIK and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to register the population, UNV said in a press release. The remaining 250 will work with UNMIK's civil administrative arm to get the territory's public services back on track. More than 250 volunteers are already in Kosovo.

"UN Volunteers are helping a population stripped of its identity find itself again," said Sharon Capeling-Alakija, the Executive Coordinator of UNV. "It's real detective work."

She said identification papers and registries have been destroyed throughout Kosovo and "50-year-olds have to produce signed receipts and anything else they can get their hands on just to prove who they are -- that they exist."

In addition to their assistance to the people of Kosovo through UNMIK and OSCE, the UN volunteers will work with several agencies in the field of humanitarian assistance and reconstruction.

Ms. Capeling-Alakija will on Thursday begin a six-day tour of Kosovo and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia where a large group of UN volunteers is currently taking part in final preparations for electoral registration of the Kosovar population.

The Serb member, Dr. Rada Trajkovic, was nominated earlier this month by the Serb National Council of Gracanica to participate in the Council as an observer for three months. Serbs have boycotted the JIAS for the last six months, mainly in protest against insecurity for their communities.

Dr. Trajkovic told the IAC that she would like Serbs to participate fully in JIAS, provided the security situation improves and measures are taken to ensure the return of displaced people.

The head of the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), Dr. Bernard Kouchner, said that some of the conditions sought by the Serbs have been achieved under his "Agenda for Co-existence" but more work needed to be done.

He said today's meeting was the beginning of democracy and a sign to the outside world that "we in Kosovo are working on building a tolerant, democratic and inclusive society".

Earlier, Dr. Kouchner had told the AIC that the participation of the Serbs "will mobilize the support of the international community for the many projects we want to implement in Kosovo, especially for creating acceptable living conditions for the people of Kosovo."

In today's meeting, the AIC also appointed a Serb, Mr. Dragan Nikolic, as the Kosovo co-head for the Department of Agriculture.

UNMIK spokeswoman Susan Manuel told journalists in Pristina that there were 10 murders in the past week, compared to three the previous week, with the victims predominantly from minority communities including. Four of the victims were Serbs and four Roma.

In addition there were incidents of attempted murders, rape, arson and beatings. In one incident in Pec on Saturday, a 70-year-old Bosniak woman was severely beaten by a crowd of young Kosovo Albanians because she spoke Serbo-Croatian, according to the UN military liaison officer who rescued her.

Ms. Manuel said that during the past week UNMIK police made 18 arrests for major crimes, including four for murder, two for kidnapping, two for rape and six for arson.

Meanwhile, troops of the international peacekeeping force (KFOR) yesterday averted a potential clash between Serbs and Albanians in Mitrovica when a crowd of Serbs crossed into the "confidence area" near the northern end of the Western Bridge across the Ibsar River which divides the city. KFOR spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Henning Philipp said the Serbs were reacting to the unexpected presence of three Albanians who were taking photographs. The troops fired two smoke grenades to keep the crowd back.

Also in Mitrovica, the first Special Police Unit was deployed today. The 115-member unit from Pakistan will take up a number of security tasks in the city where the total number of international police now number 654.