Kosovo talks over and time to decide status: EU powers

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The four major European powers involved in Balkan diplomacy said on Friday negotiations on Kosovo's future have been exhausted and it was time to settle the breakaway Serbian province's status, Western sources said.

In a letter to their European Union counterparts, the foreign ministers of Britain, France, Germany and Italy stopped short of calling for independence but said the EU must be prepared to take responsibility on the ground, the source said.

The letter came ahead of meetings next week of the 27-nation bloc's foreign ministers and leaders after European, U.S. and Russian mediators failed to break the impasse between Belgrade and Pristina on the Kosovo Albanians' demand for independence.

"The letter of the four states that they basically share (EU mediator Wolfgang) Ischinger's view that further status negotiations would offer no prospect of reaching an agreement," said a Western official familiar with the contents.

"It adds that it is now important that the EU is ready to meet its responsibilities," the official added, noting that the letter stated a preference for an accord backed by the U.N. Security Council but expressed doubt that that was possible.

"It also suggested we should help Serbia by supporting its efforts to move more rapidly towards giving it candidate status (for membership of the European Union)," the official said.

The four biggest EU states are members of the Contact Group on Balkans diplomacy creating during the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, along with the United States and Russia.

At a meeting in Brussels, NATO ministers earlier pledged to keep their 16,000-strong peace force in Kosovo at current strength as the Serbian province heads towards independence.

Moscow is opposed to any solution unacceptable to Belgrade and reiterated on Friday that the problem must be solved at the United Nations.

(reporting by Paul Taylor and Mark John)