Kosovo leader to ask Russia to back independence

PRISTINA, Serbia, Nov 15 (Reuters) Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku will visit Russia this month to make the case for granting independence to the breakaway province that Serbia is struggling to keep with help from Moscow.

Russia is a veto holder in the UN Security Council and sometime ally of fellow Orthodox nation Serbia. It is seen as the only major power standing in the way of the Kosovo Albanian bid for independence in the coming months.

Ceku would be the first Kosovo Albanian leader to visit Russia since the 1998-99 war.

''Ceku leaves on November 30 and comes back on December 2,'' a senior official in the Kosovo government told Reuters. He said Ceku would meet Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Titov.

A Russian diplomat confirmed the trip, saying Ceku would meet the international affairs committee of the Russian Duma and officials of the foreign affairs ministry, including Titov.

Moscow is unlikely to roll out the red carpet for a leader its Balkan ally accuses of war crimes.

Serbia accused neighbouring Montenegro of betrayal this month when former guerrilla commander Ceku was received as a statesman on his first visit to Podgorica since the Adriatic republic voted to split from Serbia in May.

RUSSIA'S WEIGHT ON DECISION UN-led efforts to decide the fate of Kosovo began in February.

UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari says he will present his blueprint for the territory after Serbian elections on January 21, pushing back an initial year-end deadline to assuage Western worries that moving earlier might tip the polls in favour of Serbia's strong ultranationalist parties.

The West is sympathetic to the demand of the 90 per cent ethnic Albanian majority for its own state. Ten thousand people died and 800,000 fled in the 1998-99 Serb crackdown against ethnic Albanian guerrillas. NATO's first ''humanitarian'' air war drove out Serb forces and the United Nations took control.

But Serbia insists its religious heartland must at least remain within its borders and Russia says there can be no solution without the agreement of Serbia.

Moscow has also argued that independence for the province of 2 million people would set a precedent for the Russian-backed regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia. The United States and European Union insist Kosovo is a ''unique case''.

Reports say Ahtisaari's proposal might not bring direct UN recognition of Kosovo, in deference to Russian opposition. But it will open the door to statehood and leave recognition to individual states, a move diplomats warn could split the EU, whose member states have differing attitudes to the problem.

REUTERS PB KP1825