Serbia says U.S. holds key to Balkan stability

BELGRADE (Reuters) - The United States alone can choose whether the Balkans experience stability or lawlessness, Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said on Friday, after the failure of negotiations with Kosovo Albanians.

Washington can either continue to back eventual independence for the breakaway province of Kosovo or uphold a United Nations resolution which affirms Serbian sovereignty, he said.

"The stability and peace of the whole region now depends on a U.S. decision whether it will respect U.N. Resolution 1244 or will opt for a gross violation of the resolution and the U.N. Charter," he told Serbia's Beta news agency.

Resolution 1244, adopted in 1999, authorizes U.N. administration of the province under NATO security, which began that year after the Western alliance drove out Serb forces to end a ruthless crackdown on Albanian separatists.

The resolution affirms the sovereignty of now defunct Yugoslavia, of which Serbia is the successor state.

The United States is not alone in viewing independence as the only viable option for Kosovo, whose 90 percent Albanian population has demanded a clean break with Serbia for the past eight years, following a war which cost over 10,000 lives.

The great majority of the EU's 27-member states also support statehood if no compromise can be reached with Serbia.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, during a news conference in Nice on Friday with Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, said no one wanted to humiliate Serbia or challenge its main big power backer, Russia.

"The Kosovars will have their independence. The Serbs must understand that it's about neighbors, and that they have to live together," he said. "We would like it to happen at the opportune time ... when no one feels humiliated. Because what we want is peace between the Kosovars and the Serbs."

COOL DOWN TIME

But referring to the legal problems inherent in independence without U.N. endorsement, Sarkozy said French and other NATO troops keeping the peace in Kosovo need clarity, and if further talks can achieve it, Paris is not opposed.

"We don't want our soldiers ... in an inextricable legal situation," he said. "If we have to give ourselves a few more weeks to cool things down ... France believes that is preferable to considering that December 10 at 2400, everything has to stop."

The date is the deadline for a report to the U.N. by U.S., Russian and EU mediators who wound up their mission in Baden, Austria after four months of talks capped by a three-day conference which ended in deadlock.

The U.S. and EU say the mediation process ends then.

NATO's Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said on Friday alliance troops would stick to keeping peace in Kosovo after December 10 even though "it doesn't look good".

"It should be very clear that NATO's commitment to the establishment of a peaceful and democratic Kosovo will not end on December 10," he told a seminar on Kosovo in Vienna.

"We will be around on the 11th and 12th and however long is necessary to remain a critical stabilizing influence in the region. No violence will be tolerated by KFOR ... in the sensitive period ahead," he said.

Kostunica said "compromise would be certainly found which would satisfy crucial interests of both Serbs and Albanians" if only Washington affirmed Serbian sovereignty.

"It is clear that all responsibility lies with America and its choice between law and stability, on one hand, and lawlessness and long-term instability on the other," he said.

The failure of the Baden conference, while no surprise, has rung alarm bells in Western capitals. The three mediators will visit Serbia and Kosovo for the last time on Monday.

Serbia dismisses reports it might take military action if Kosovo Albanians declare independence early next year as they have pledged to do, in coordination with Western backers. But it is drafting an "action plan" which includes punitive measures.

(Additional reporting by Jon Boyle in Paris and Mark Heinrich in Vienna; Editing by Janet Lawrence)