By Douglas Hamilton

BELGRADE, June 11 (Reuters) Serbs will never forgive the United States if it gives their Kosovo province to Kosovo Albanians demanding independence, Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said today.

In a bitter response to President George W Bush's promise to the Albanians that Kosovo will soon be independent, he said Serbia was ''justifiably disgusted'' by US policy, the official Serbian news agency Tanjug reported.

The row over Kosovo's future deepened as the province marked the eve of the 8th anniversary of the June 12 deployment of 60,000 NATO troops who entered the territory from Macedonia as Serb forces withdrew to the north.

It has turned into a high-stakes diplomatic standoff between Russia, which backs Serbia in opposition to independence, and the West, which believes it is the only viable solution to future stability in the southern Balkans.

''The U S has a right to support certain states and peoples in accordance with its interests, but not by making them a present of something which doesn't belong to it,'' the Serb premier said.

''The U.S. bombing of Serbia was a big enough mistake for last century and this one as well,'' added Kostunica, who has suggested that Serbia would curtail diplomatic ties with any state that recognises independence.

''Supporting one-sided independence for Kosovo would be a fresh mistake, a further act of unjustified violence, which would not be forgotten by the Serbian people,'' he said.

EIGHT-YEAR WAIT The United States led NATO military intervention in the Kosovo crisis in 1999, bombing Serbia for 11 weeks until the late autocrat Slobodan Milosevic gave in and withdrew his army and paramilitary police from the province.

Serbia's counter-insurgency war against Albanian separatist guerrillas killed some 10,000 Albanian civilians and temporarily drove nearly a million from the country. Evidence of atrocities was covered up by hiding bodies in mass graves.

Kosovo has been under U N administration and NATO protection since June 1999, awaiting a decision on its future.

Visiting Albania yesterday, Bush said the United States and European Union were convinced that independence for Kosovo was the only viable solution, as demanded by the 90 percent ethnic Albanian majority.

Bush said Washington would make further diplomatic efforts to convince Russia, which could veto a resolution in the U N Security Council.

But Bush also said that ''at some point in time, sooner rather than later, you have to say enough is enough, Kosovo is independent''. The West could bring the issue to a Security Council vote this month.

''If America wants to ignore international law, it should be known that Serbia will reject and dismiss any form of independence for its southern province,'' Kostunica said.

''The US has to find some way of showing its favour and love for the Albanians other than presenting them with Serbian territories,'' said Kostunica, who visited Russian President Vladimir Putin at the weekend to confer on Kosovo.

REUTERS KK HT1835