US to underscore support for UN Kosovo plan

Washington, Mar 24: Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns will underscore strong US support for a UN plan for the independence of Serbia's Kosovo province during talks in Brussels next week, the State Department said.

His meetings on Monday through Wednesday at the NATO and European Union headquarters will also include discussions about Iran and Afghanistan, among other issues.

Burns ''will hold a series of meetings on Kosovo with European leaders in which he will communicate strong US support for UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari's plan for the future of Kosovo,'' according to the office of department spokesman Sean McCormack.

The plan would give independence to the Albanian-majority province, supervised by the European Union, eight years after Western nations went to war to wrest control of the territory from Slobodan Milosevic's Serbia.

The United States and EU have set an unofficial deadline of June, when Germany's EU presidency ends, to adopt a new UN Security Council resolution endorsing Ahtisaari's plan and mandating the EU to take over from the UN mission.

NATO allies heading 16,500 troops in Kosovo fear that waiting much longer would spark unrest.

On Monday, Burns is to speak to the Centre for European Policy Studies and on Tuesday will meet senior NATO officials to discuss military operations in Kosovo and Afghanistan.

He will have separate talks with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

Reuters