Russia "pleased" it foiled Kosovo independence at G8

ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - Russia, which blocked Kosovo's bid for independence from Serbia, assured Serbia on Saturday of its continued support, saying it was pleased other G8 nations were taking its arguments seriously.

In a public setback for Western leaders who back Kosovo's bid for independence and who are pushing for action this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin refused on Friday to back down from his insistence there can be no resolution of the province's status without the agreement of Serbia.

Putin said after a G8 summit of the world's major industrialized nations on Friday that undermining Serbia's sovereignty "does not correspond to moral or legal norms".

President George W. Bush said on Saturday the United Nations Security Council must act now on a plan to grant Kosovo supervised independence.

Washington supports a proposal by U.N. mediator Martti Ahtisaari which offers Kosovo independence under international supervision, but Russia has threatened to veto any vote.

"Our position (on Kosovo) was formulated long ago and it has not changed since then," Putin told Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica at their meeting on the fringes of the 11th St Petersburg International Economic Forum.

"I will inform you with pleasure about the results of discussing this problem within the G8. And I must say that our views on this problem run counter to those of my G8 colleagues."

"But at the same time, I got an impression that finally our arguments are being treated seriously by our G8 colleagues."

Serb forces killed 10,000 Kosovo Albanians and drove out nearly a million people in a 1998-99 anti-insurgency war which was halted by three months of NATO bombing of Serb targets. The Albanians vow they will never return to Serb sovereignty.

Kosovo Albanian leaders, under growing public pressure to declare independence from Serbia, warned they would take their "own path" if the U.N. Security Council did not vote soon.

"I want to repeat one more time that Serbia once and for all rejected the Ahtisaari plan which contradicts the U.N. charter and consists in taking away 15 percent of Serbia's territory," Kostunica told Putin.

Kosovo is the cradle of Serbia's Orthodox faith but is now home to a 90-percent Albanian majority. Serbia offers wide autonomy for the province instead of independence.

Kostunica, who is widely believed to be traveling to Russia's second largest city to personally thank Putin for blocking Kosovo's independence, invited big Russian business to the Balkan nation promising "opportunities much bigger" than now.