The world's key powers meet this weekend to try forcing Kosovo's stalled peace talks back on track amid Serb threats that they will break off discussions with their ethnic Albanian foes.
Meanwhile, violence has again flared in the Yugoslav province, with the abduction of two Serbian policemen following a week in which six ethnic Albanians have been kidnapped and killed.
Tomorrow foreign ministers of the European Union will meet in Paris, close to Rambouillet, site of the chateau where peace talks began last Sunday. This meeting will be followed by that of the sixpower Contact Group, including the United States and Russia. Its agenda will be dominated by the "fleshing-out" of threats made to use NATO air power against either, or both, sides, if they fail to agree a peace deal.
A week of haggling within the walls of this luxurious castle, shut off from the outside world, has failed to bring agreement on a western-designed peace deal. NATO has already indicated its willingness to bomb, with the United States repeating this week that its planes were ready to hit Serbian targets if they refused a peace deal within a deadline which expires next weekend. And Britain has begun shipping tanks and guns of an armoured brigade to the region, in expectation of deploying an 8,000-strong force as part of a peacekeeping mission in the province.
But there are doubts about whether France and Russia will support the hawkish line of the Anglo-Americans. Without this, the Serbs are likely to water down or stall on signing the Rambouillet plan, drafted by the United States, which calls for a ceasefire and widespread autonomy for this southern province.
Amid this uncertainty, Serbia's president, Mr Milan Milutinovic, yesterday said he would be breaking off talks altogether, unless the ethnic Albanian delegation at the chateau signs a declaration renouncing their call for independence.
Western diplomats say this is a stalling tactic - the Rambouillet talks are aimed at finding only a temporary peace deal, with the question of the province's longterm future put off for three years.
But Mr Milutinovic said this was not good enough: "We cannot start building a house from the roof and then reach the foundations and realise it will fall down," he said. "If they [the ethnic Albanians] sign, we will continue the negotiations. If not, no negotiations."
The ethnic Albanians are in confident mood: one source close to the talks said last night that they were in a "win-win" situation. If the Serbs sign the Rambouillet deal, Kosovo's 90-per cent ethnic Albanians will get wide-ranging autonomy, with the guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army transforming themselves into armed policemen. If the Serbs fail to sign, NATO could hit them with air strikes.
Rambouillet would mean the Albanians agreeing to shelve, for now, their dream of independence, but most think they can use the three-year interim period of autonomy to grow stronger.
"I don't think anyone is pleased but this deal is what is on the market - this is all we can afford," said Mr Daut Dauti, London correspondent for Kosovo's Zeri magazine. "What's really important is to stop all this killing."
But this killing continues, and could yet derail the talks. In the past week a total of six ethnic Albanians have been killed and their bodies dumped on roadsides throughout the province. Yesterday came news that two Serb policemen had been kidnapped, apparently by the KLA.