Solana hopes EU Kosovo mission deployed early December

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said on Friday he hoped a new EU justice and police mission would be deployed in Kosovo by early December.

In February, the EU agreed to send the mission, known as EULEX, to Kosovo to take over from the United Nations and oversee the police, the judiciary and customs, but its deployment had been delayed by opposition from Serbia, which refuses to accept the secession of its former province.

Diplomats in New York say U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to issue a report next week saying there is now enough agreement for the mission to take over much of the authority held by the U.N. mission in Kosovo, or UNMIK.

"I hope very much that the report of the secretary-general will be issued, the sooner the better, and I hope that the beginning of next week will be (it)," Solana said after meeting Ban at U.N. headquarters in New York.

"If that is the case, then we will be ready to deploy by the beginning of December," he said.

EULEX's deployment ran into new obstacles recently. Earlier this month, Ban proposed an amended six-point plan for the deployment of EULEX that was accepted by Serbia but rejected by Kosovo.

According to the amended plan, police, customs officers and judges in the Serb-run areas would be under the umbrella of UNMIK, while their Albanian counterparts would work with EULEX.

Kosovo said that would violate its constitution and amounted to a de facto partition of the fledgling state.

The United States, an important supporter of Kosovo, has urged Pristina to accept the plan. After a meeting with Kosovo's leaders in Pristina on Monday, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried told reporters that Ban's amended plan contained "a lot of good and no harm."

Kosovo's population is 90 percent Albanian. The remaining 120,000 Serbs refuse to cooperate with Albanian-run institutions.

Britain's U.N. ambassador, John Sawers, told Reuters on Friday the United Nations believed there was a "sufficient level of agreement now" between Belgrade and Pristina on EULEX for Ban to report that the deployment can go ahead as planned.

Kosovo declared independence in February, nine years after a U.N. administration was set up to run the province after Serbian forces were compelled to leave after a NATO bombing campaign.

(Editing by Peter Cooney)