Russia blasts UN Kosovo chief as EU role planned

* Russia demands disciplinary action against U.N. in Kosovo

* NATO discusses international security presence in Kosovo

* U.N.'s Ban plans to give EU role in U.N. Kosovo mission



By Mark John

BRUSSELS, June 12 (Reuters) - Russia demanded disciplinary action against the head of the United Nations mission in Kosovo on Thursday for preparing to hand over powers to a European Union mission that Moscow says is illegal.

Russia's foreign ministry made the demand on the same day NATO chiefs met to try and iron out problems over the international security presence in Kosovo, which announced its secession from Serbia this year.

Alliance defence ministers meeting in Brussels will also hear a U.S. call for them to follow up on promises of more troops in Afghanistan, and will urge their Russian counterpart to ease tensions with Georgia over the Abkhazia region.

Kosovo's disputed Feb. 17 secession from Serbia passed off calmly but has left questions over the security arrangements in the territory, administered by the United Nations after NATO's 1999 bombing campaign to drive out Serb forces.

In a long-awaited move, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sought on Thursday to answer those questions by setting out a "reconfiguration" of its activities to allow the European Union to pursue its goal of launching a police mission there.

"It is my intention to reconfigure the structure and profile of the international civil presence to one that ... enables the European Union to assume an enhanced operational role in Kosovo in accordance with resolution 1244," Ban said in the letter to Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu, obtained by Reuters.

Russia, which opposes Kosovo's independence and says the EU has no mandate to be there, demanded disciplinary action against the head of the U.N. Mission to Kosovo, saying it was "seriously concerned" by reports that the mission was being wound up.

"It is obvious that any actions with regard to UNMIK, or a changing in the format of the international presence in Kosovo, are only possible on the basis of a decision of the U.N. Security Council," a Russian Foreign ministry statement said.

Details of the UNMIK shake-up were not immediately available but Ban said it would apply "for a limited duration and without prejudice to the status of Kosovo".



EU MISSION

Diplomats expect Ban to set up arrangements under which the 2,200-strong EU mission -- already months behind schedule because of Russian resistance at the United Nations -- will function autonomously but under the umbrella of a U.N. mandate.

In Pristina, Sejdiu told reporters: "I have received the letter from Ban. We cannot comment. We are still analysing it."

Serb officials have said they expect to be granted extensive rights to administer the Serb-dominated north of Kosovo as part of the UNMIK reconfiguration, in what some analysts fear could be the first step towards a de facto partition.

In a separate conundrum for NATO ministers, obstacles have also emerged over longstanding NATO plans to train Kosovo's own armed force. Diplomats said Turkey was concerned the effort would mean sharing sensitive information with EU member Cyprus, the island at the centre of decades of Turkish-Greek tension.

Separately, some of the countries which have not recognised Kosovo -- such as Spain -- are also unhappy with internal NATO planning documents for the training mission which they argue use terminology assuming Kosovo's independent statehood.

"I do not see a happy end to this just yet," said one NATO diplomat, playing down prospects for consensus in Brussels over arrangements for NATO help in creating a 2,500-strong, lightly armed "Kosovo Security Force" (KSF).

The wrangling comes just days before the June 15 date when Kosovo's new constitution comes into force and when questions over the new security make-up for the territory were long supposed to have been settled.

Allies fear that the delay in a planned handover from the United Nations to the EU of police tasks in Kosovo could mean that alliance troops are burdened with duties such as riot control for which they have not been trained.

Yet despite their concerns, NATO officials stress NATO's core peacekeeping force in Kosovo will remain there.

"NATO has been the backbone of stability in this period of transition and it is essential that continues," said a senior U.S. official. (Additional reporting by Moscow and Pristina bureaus, and Kristin Roberts; Editing by Caroline Drees)