In July and August of 2007, the United States and the EU worked to organize the additional rounds of negotiation. After the Security Council impasse, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad was quoted as saying, “The Contact Group will lead a new process to move forward as proposed in the resolution. There will be 120-day negotiation, but outside the Security Council because the process there was blocked. Russia is in the Contact Group, but it doesn't have a veto there. Therefore, we have a new process that is not related to the Security Council.”

Ahtisaari asked to be excused from managing the 120-day process; his plan, he thought, was the best that could be achieved to serve the legitimate interests of Belgrade and Pristina, and it would be counterproductive to expose it to tinkering. “The last thing we needed was for the Plan to be reopened,” he says. “I didn't want any further role for UNOSEK. My folks and I did not want to put the Plan into play for cherry picking by Serbia and Russia.” Better would be a process that would show all of Europe that every avenue for resolving Kosovo's status had been explored, leaving the Ahtisaari Plan as the only feasible option. “It was time now for the member states of the EU to step up and do their part. The Quint had to be in the driver's seat,” Ahtisaari said later.