Kosovo's international administration yesterday urged Serbs to register for a province-wide election expected later this year or increase their isolation.
Mr Daan Everts, deputy head of the administration, said leaders in Belgrade should back registration now, even if they chose to wait before deciding whether Serbs should actually vote in the election, expected in late October or early November.
Mr Everts acknowledged that the Serbian leaders he has lobbied in Belgrade were reserving judgement until they saw the outcome of consultations on a blueprint for self-government which will set the stage for the election.
Serbian officials in Belgrade and politicians representing Kosovo's ethnic Serbs have voiced concern that the blueprint will give de facto independence to Kosovo, legally still part of Serb-dominated Yugoslavia but under international rule since June 1999.
Mr Everts said Serb concerns would be taken into account in the document through provisions such as an over-representation of minority communities in the planned Kosovo assembly.
"There's no doubt that not joining the democratic process will lead to marginalisation, further isolation and be very self-injurious," he told reporters in the Serbian capital.
Serbs have been the victims of numerous violent attacks in Kosovo since the end of NATO's 1999 air war against Yugoslavia, waged to end state-sponsored repression of ethnic Albanians.
An estimated 180,000 Serbs have fled the province and many of those who remain live in heavily guarded enclaves.
The Serbs boycotted Kosovo local elections last year, encouraged by the previous Yugoslav and Serbian authorities under former president Mr Slobodan Milosevic.