UN team visits Serbia as Russia blocks Kosovo bid

SERBIA:A UN Security Council team is due to arrive in Serbia today to start a fact-finding mission on Kosovo, amid Russian threats to block western efforts to grant sovereignty to the province.

Belgrade wants Moscow to stop Washington and major EU nations pushing through "conditional independence" for Kosovo, and demands more talks on the fate of a region Serbs consider the cradle of their nation, despite its huge ethnic-Albanian majority.

Fears of a diplomatic showdown between the Kremlin and the White House and Brussels grew yesterday, when Russia for the first time threatened explicitly to use its Security Council veto over Kosovo, where radical groups have threatened to respond with violence to any delay in their independence bid.

"A decision based on Martti Ahtisaari's draft will not get through the UN Security Council," said Russia's deputy foreign minister Vladimir Titov, referring to the UN envoy who has proposed broad sovereignty for Kosovo under the supervision of EU officials.

"I think the threat of using the veto should stimulate the sides to find a mutually-acceptable mechanism," Mr Titov added. "We have said that we will not support a solution that is not supported by both sides."

In response, Kosovo prime minister Agim Ceku said: "We are not alone in this process. Saying 'No' to plan is not just a 'No' to us. It is a 'No' to the international community, the United States and United Kingdom."

Washington insists independence is the only way forward for a region that has been under UN control since 1999, when Nato bombing forced Serbia to end a brutal crackdown on separatist rebels that also killed 10,000 ethnic-Albanian civilians.

Ambassadors from the 15 states currently sitting on the UN Security Council are expected to land in Belgrade today, before heading to Kosovo later in the week.

Vojislav Kostunica, the Serb prime minister who vows never to relinquish Kosovo, claims that Mr Ahtisaari's plan is defunct and that talks are now entering a "completely new phase" which should focus on the fate of 200,000 Serbs who fled Kosovo in 1999 to escape revenge attacks.

An association of displaced Serbs has said thousands of refugees will gather on Kosovo's border this week to lobby the UN delegation, and demand the right to return to their old homes.

While putting pressure on Serbia's leaders to let Kosovo go, western governments worry they are playing into the hands of the ultra-nationalist Radical Party that won January's general election. Since then, talks between Mr Kostunica and president Boris Tadic to form a coalition government have failed, and now the Radicals want a fresh ballot.

"A coalition of (Mr Kostunica) and Boris Tadic would lead Serbia right into the lap of those who are tearing Kosovo away from it - the EU and the United States," the Radicals said in a statement yesterday. "Elections at all levels are the best way to lead Serbia out of the crisis."