Serbia says it won't trade Kosovo for EU or NATO

By Douglas Hamilton

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Serbia will never surrender Kosovo to the breakaway province's ethnic Albanian majority or trade its territory for European Union or NATO membership, Serb leaders said on Tuesday.

Serbia "will give up neither Kosovo nor its European future", President Boris Tadic said in a statement which rejected "any compensation for lost territory".

"It would be damaging if any country recognized the independence of Kosovo without a proper decision by the Security Council", he said.

The statement was softer in tone but much the same in substance as a vow by Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica.

On Monday he said U.S. President George W. Bush had "disgusted" Serbs by promising independence to Kosovo and would not be forgiven.

Kostunica said on Tuesday taking land from a sovereign state "in return for the offer of a bright future" was unacceptable.

The row deepened as Kosovo marked the 8th anniversary of the deployment of 60,000 troops of NATO, which bombed Serbia for 11 weeks in 1999 to compel it to withdraw forces who killed some 10,000 Albanian civilians in a counter-insurgency conflict.

Speaking in Paris, U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said Western allies looked certain to press ahead with a plan drawn up by U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari to provide a platform for Kosovo independence.