Kosovo to Declare Independence Despite Russian Opposition

The government of the contested Balkan province of Kosovo yesterday said it would issue a unilateral declaration of independence within months in exasperation at western capitulation to a Russian veto threat in the UN security council.

As Washington and European countries abandoned the latest attempt to push through a security council resolution paving the way for Kosovo's formal secession from Serbia, the Kosovo prime minister, Agim Ceku, before leaving for talks in the US capital, said Kosovo independence would be declared on November 28.

The statement from Mr Ceku came a day after Germany warned him not to undertake such a move since it could unravel a fragile European consensus in support of Kosovo independence.

But Mr Ceku indicated that the deadlock in the security council, following months of argument, left him with little alternative.

Kosovo has been under UN administration since the Nato war against Serbia in 1999. Serbia, with stalwart Russian backing, refuses to countenance an independent Kosovo. The majority Albanians of Kosovo will accept nothing less.

More than a year of negotiations ended earlier this year with no agreement. The mediator of talks, Martti Ahtisaari of Finland, then tabled settlement terms which put Kosovo on the path to independence under EU auspices.

An EU mission would replace the UN in Kosovo, but a security council mandate is needed for that to happen. The latest resolution draft, which the west declined to put to a vote yesterday because the Kremlin would have vetoed it, called for a further four months of negotiations after which the EU would automatically replace the UN, although the draft did not mention independence in deference to the Russians. There is scant chance of further negotiations achieving any agreement.

But a Russian official said: "Any imposed solution will be doomed to failure. And any solution not agreed by both sides has no chance of being approved by the security council."

The Russians seem content to see the dispute fester for years. The Americans, by contrast, want a quick solution, raising the possibility that Washington could recognise a unilateral declaration of independence and press EU countries to follow suit. That could confront the EU with a foreign policy fiasco just when it is trying to develop more coherent foreign policy-making.

The Americans have held back so far under demands from the EU. Despite formal EU support for the Ahtisaari plan, criticism of the Finnish envoy's mediation is growing among European diplomats and officials, and European support could shatter if tested. Moscow appears to be banking on that.