Serbs in north Kosovo break ties with UN mission

ZVECAN, Serbia, June 6 (Reuters) Serb leaders in north Kosovo said they had cut all contact with the province's UN and ethnic Albanian authorities, in a fresh sign of resistance as the Albanian majority pushes for independence from Serbia this year.

At a protest in the town of Zvecan, leaders of some 50,000 Serbs in north Kosovo declared a ''state of emergency'' in response to a recent spate of shootings they blame on Albanians.

They called for the return of the Serbian police, who were forced to leave the province in 1999 with the Yugoslav army, under an agreement to end 78 days of NATO bombing.

''If that does not happen, the municipalities of northern Kosovo will issue applications for 999 Serb police officers,'' said the declaration.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 provides for the return of up to 1,000 Serbian police. But any such step could reignite the 1999 conflict, observers say.

The declaration also repeated a recent call by Belgrade urging Serb health workers and teachers to stop accepting pay from Kosovo institutions and take salaries from Serbia.

''Today a state of emergency is declared on the territory of the four northern municipalities, which are breaking off all contact with the interim Kosovo institutions, primarily the U.N.

mission,'' the declaration said.

Diplomats see a risk that Serb resistance in the north -- a strip of land running adjacent to central Serbia -- could escalate into a unilateral bid to partition Kosovo if it wins independence in U.N.-led talks that began in February.

CONTINGENCY PLANS The UN has contingency plans for a mass Serb exodus in the event the 90-percent ethnic Albanian majority gets its own state, while NATO said last week it planned to bolster patrols in the north by reopening a military base.

Western powers want a decision on Kosovo's ''final status'' within the year but have ruled out partition as an invitation to fresh ethnic violence and population movements.

Diplomats say the West favours independence, but Serbia shows no sign of consenting to the amputation of its religious heartland, despite the fact that many Serbs have never seen it.

The UN took control of Kosovo seven years ago, when NATO drove out Serb forces to halt killings and ethnic cleansing.

Around half the Serb population fled a wave of revenge attacks as NATO deployed. To this day, sporadic violence targets those who stayed, many in enclaves guarded by the 17,000-strong NATO-led peace force. Serbs in the north have resisted U.N.

efforts to integrate them.

UN officials, who are watching Albanian efforts to improve the rights of Serbs, say the rate of ethnically motivated crime has dropped in the past six months. Serbs dispute this.

UN police issued a statement on Monday saying that two recent incidents, including the murder of a Serb man near Zvecan, did not appear to be ethnically motivated.

Reuters SK VP0550