US/BALKANS:A senior US official has urged Serb and Kosovo Albanian leaders to accept a controversial United Nations' plan for the region's "conditional independence".
He also urged that this weekend's final round of talks be used to make practical proposals about the details of the deal.
UN envoy Martii Ahtisaari wants Kosovo to be given internationally monitored statehood - a solution that goes too far for Serbia, which wants to retain ultimate control of the province, and not far enough for some Kosovans, who demand an explicit declaration of full sovereignty.
The leaders of 90 per cent ethnic-Albanian Kosovo, which has been run by the UN since Nato bombing ended a bloody Serb crackdown in the region in 1999, accept Mr Ahtisaari's plan, and share the West's opposition to any further delay to a decision on the province's status.
"We don't need slogans, angry words. We need solid work at this point," US assistant secretary of state Dan Fried said about talks planned for Saturday in Vienna. This will be the last time Serb and Kosovan leaders will be able to propose changes to the Kosovo blueprint before it goes to the UN Security Council for discussion and a vote.
"It does not give everything to either side - it gives something to both sides," Mr Fried said after meeting Kosovan officials.
The UN plan envisages Kosovo having its own constitution, army, national anthem and flag, and running its own affairs under international supervision resembling that provided by the so-called high representative in Bosnia. The UN also wants to give to Kosovo's Serb communities a large degree of autonomy and the right to receive some funding from Belgrade.
Washington and the EU accept that Serbia's leaders cannot publicly approve a plan that is deeply unpopular with their people, and they are treading as softly as they dare over Kosovo to protect pro-western president Boris Tadic from ridicule by Belgrade's powerful nationalists.
"I understand that neither President Tadic nor Prime Minister Kostunica accept the concept of an independent Kosovo, but that does not prevent the Serbian government presenting specific recommendations that will help protect the Serbian community" in Kosovo, Mr Fried said.
Mr Tadic's party came second in January's general election, behind the ultra-nationalist Radical Party and ahead of Mr Kostunica's more moderate nationalists. Coalition talks are now taking place, and Brussels is promising closer ties if they form a moderate government that co-operates over Kosovo.
