Serbia urges U.N. Security Council to reject Kosovo independence plan

The council's 15 ambassadors met with Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, and separately with pro-Western President Boris Tadic, in an effort to gather information on Kosovo before the U.N. body decides on the disputed province's future status, probably in May.

Kostunica told the U.N. mission that accepting Kosovo's independence would represent a breach of the U.N. Charter, which guarantees that member states' borders are unchangeable.

"It would be unbelievable that the U.N. Security Council adopts a resolution that violates the U.N. Charter," Kostunica told the ambassadors at a closed-door meeting, according to his adviser Aleksandar Simic.

Tadic said in a statement that the plan proposed by U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari "is unacceptable to Serbia as it is not a result of a compromise."

Kostunica and Tadic reiterated Serbia's counterproposal to grant Kosovo wide autonomy, but keep it within Serbian borders. The Serb proposal has been rejected repeatedly by Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, who make up about 90 percent of Kosovo's 2 million population.

Belgium's U.N. Ambassador Johan Verbeke, who is leading the mission, said the purpose of the trip was to gather information on the ground, and not to make immediate decisions.

"We are on the eve of important decisions to be taken by the Security Council," Verbeke said after meetings with Serbian officials. "The council definitely wanted to be fully informed so it can act upon the heavy responsibility on the delicate issue of Kosovo."

Kosovo has been under U.N. and NATO administration since the end of the 1998-99 war there, and NATO maintains a 16,500-strong force in the province to keep the peace.

Russia — which backs Serbia in objecting to Kosovo's independence — had sought the U.N. fact-finding mission, which arrived in Belgrade on Wednesday.

Earlier Wednesday in Brussels, NATO and European Union officials urged the Security Council to endorse the controversial plan drafted by Ahtisaari.

Ahtisaari, a former Finnish president, recommended that the impoverished province be granted internationally supervised independence — a proposal vehemently rejected by the Serbs, who consider Kosovo the historic cradle of their statehood and religion.

The Security Council ambassadors will travel to Kosovo and meet Friday with ethnic Albanian and Kosovo Serb officials. They also were expected to visit regions where members of the dwindling Serb minority live in NATO-protected enclaves.

Serbian officials on Thursday were trying to persuade the Security Council ambassadors to concentrate on the plight of the minority Kosovo Serbs. Kostunica reportedly told the ambassadors that Serbs in Kosovo faced "kidnappings, murder, restriction of movement, destruction of their property and churches."

About 10,000 Serb refugees gathered Thursday at the boundary with Kosovo to tell the U.N. mission that they still wanted to return to homes they were forced to leave after the war.

"The American administration hates the Serbs and they want to create another Albanian state on the Balkans," Marko Jaksic, a hard-line Kosovo Serb leader, told the gathering, as the crowd chanted, "Russia, Russia!"

About 200,000 Serbs fled during a period of revenge attacks by ethnic Albanians that followed the war between Serb forces and armed separatists. Only a small number of Serbs have returned since then, and many of them have faced attacks.

Some 10,000 Kosovo Albanians were killed during the war, which ended after 78 days of NATO air strikes aimed at ending the Serbian government's crackdown on Kosovo separatists.

The U.S. and EU nations support plans to give Kosovo eventual independence, but Russia was leading a group of nations that oppose such a move, fearing it could set a precedent for other regions or provinces aiming to declare independence.

The division among the veto-holding permanent Security Council members — the U.S., Britain, France, Russia and China — is shaping up as one of the thorniest issues in the increasingly difficult relationship between the West and a resurgent Russia.

U.S. and EU officials have warned that delaying a resolution on Kosovo's status could trigger another round of interethnic violence in the province. The Associated Press

/The International Herald Tribune/