PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (CNN) -- A team of international officials met Saturday with divided ethnic Albanians in an attempt to jump-start peace talks between them and Serbs over the future of the Serbian province of Kosovo.

Tensions in the region rose this week after 46 people were killed in the worst flare-up of violence since Yugoslav President , under threat of NATO airstrikes, agreed in October to scale back his troops.

French and Austrian diplomats led the officials to the provincial capital for talks with ethnic Albanian leaders, in an attempt to bring together the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and more moderate followers of Ibrahim Rugova.

"We are very concerned about the deteriorating security situation here in Kosovo, and we do not want the negotiating process, that has not started yet, to be derailed by the mounting violence," said European Union envoy Wolfgang Petritsch.

The diplomats, representing the so-called Contact Group on Yugoslavia -- Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the United States -- met first with Fehmi Agani, head of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian negotiating team. They were to meet later with KLA political representative Adem Demaci.

Agani represents Rugova's Democratic League of Kosovo, which has said it would accept broad autonomy for Kosovo, where about 90 percent of the population is ethnic Albanian. The KLA has demanded full independence for the province.

The diplomatic team was trying to find a way to bring both sides together in the debate.

"We are still short of a real and definite commitment that will lead to a concrete forming of such a team, but this was the first round of talks," Petritsch said.

Petritsch, Austria's ambassador to Belgrade, Yugoslavia, said the KLA must give up its military activities before the group can participate in the peace talks.

"There are positive signals that the KLA is realizing that there is an extremely serious situation and that they will have to decide whether to continue on the military path or whether they want to join the political negotiation process," he said.

Reuters contributed to this report.