Russia rejects December deadline for Kosovo deal

Russia:Russia has rejected any deadline for talks on the status of Kosovo, amid Serb claims that the United States is blocking a compromise deal on the province's bid for independence.

Envoys from the US, Russia and European Union are due to report to the United Nations on December 10th on the progress of talks between Belgrade and Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders, who demand full independence for their region.

Washington and major EU countries say this should be the deadline for a negotiated solution on Kosovo, a 90 per cent ethnic-Albanian province that Serbs see as the historical and spiritual heartland of their nation. Kosovo's leaders have threatened to unilaterally declare independence after December 10th, regardless of whether such a move gains approval from the UN Security Council, where Moscow has pledged to veto any resolution that Serbia does not accept.

The US has suggested that it would support such a declaration and recognise Kosovo's sovereignty, a position that Washington expects to also be taken by the EU, which would oversee the running and security of independent Kosovo.

"The negotiation process does not end on December 10th," countered Russia's envoy to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov. "We do not see December 10th as some kind of a watershed. It is just a completion of a stage."

Mr Chizhov said that after December 10th the UN secretary general would "ask the troika to continue its work, or create a new format, or the Serbs and Kosovo Albanians will by then [have reached an agreement]."

Though Serb and Kosovan leaders have belatedly agreed to hold face-to-face talks, there has been no public sign of any convergence of their positions.

However, Serb prime minister Vojislav Kostunica this week blamed Washington for blocking a compromise deal, without explaining what such a deal would include.

"Every day, statements by American officials that Kosovo will become independent after December 10th . . . aim to stop Kosovo Albanians from accepting a compromise solution for the province," Mr Kostunica said, accusing the US of trying to annexe "15 per cent of our territory" to create a de facto Nato state in the heart of the Balkans.

State department spokesman Tom Casey said the US was "not impeding anything", but reiterated that "barring an agreement among the parties, what we would believe appropriate and what we would tend to move forward with, would be a period of supervised autonomy for Kosovo".