"We would be totally paralyzed if people would say, don't do this because it may have an effect on something else," Ahtisaari told reporters after he had informed the UN Security Council on the progress of talks he had had on the problem with Serb officials in Belgrade and Albanian leaders in Kosovo.

"This is a special case," international news agencies quoted him as saying.

He claimed that Kosovo's history makes the conflict there different from any other conflict in the Balkans, other parts of Eastern Europe or the Caucasus.

A warning that the granting of independence to Kosovo is prone with the risks of highly detrimental political aftermath was made earlier Friday by Ukraine's Foreign Minister, Boris Tarasyuk.

Reuters quoted him as saying the decision could have a ripple effect from the Black Sea to the Caucasus.

"A lot of separatist regimes in the region are waiting for a solution of the Kosovo problem in order to undertake their action to separate," he said.

"Kosovo might be the precedent on which separatist regimes may take their decisions," Tarasyuk said.

He indicated that Kosovo's independence might undermine the efforts of the international community to bring settlement to the conflicts smoldering in parts of the former Soviet Union – the Dniester region of Moldova, Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, and Karabakh in Azerbaijan.

/Itar-Tass/