New Kosovo UN draft may keep independence route

UNITED NATIONS, July 11 (Reuters) Europeans and the United States are drafting a UN resolution that would order 120 days of negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo's ethnic Albanians but no longer automatically call for independence.

Instead, diplomats said yesterday, the compromise UN Security Council draft was expected to put in place some key institutions that would lay the groundwork for a future independent Kosovo. They did not give details.

The document would be the third attempt to get agreement from Russia, which has veto power in the 15-nation council.

Moscow has said that Kosovo, a Serbian province, could not be severed without Belgrade's consent.

Council members China, Indonesia and South Africa more or less agree with Russia, diplomats said.

Kosovo, where 90 percent of the 2 million people are ethnic Albanians, has been run by the United Nations since 1999, when NATO bombs forced out Serb troops that were killing and expelling Albanians in a two-year war with guerrillas.

Some European envoys said they wanted to avoid a second resolution after the four months of talks ended. But other diplomats said that would depend on how far the new resolution, expected to be introduced as early as this week, moved toward independence.

Karen Pierce, the deputy British ambassador, insisted that ''independence for Kosovo is inevitable reflecting the aspirations of more than 90 percent of the population.'' ''There is a new Serb government and obviously an agreed outcome between Belgrade and Pristina is the best option,'' she said. ''Therefore we are prepared, as Western representatives have made clear recently, to consider a further period of concerted negotiations to see if agreement can be reached.'' ''The resolution we will table shortly is about those negotiations,'' Pierce said.

Italian Ambassador Marcello Spatafora, however, left the issue of independence up in the air, telling reporters that US and Europeans sponsors of the resolution wanted real negotiations with ''no preset result.'' UN mediator Martti Ahtisaari, who drew up a plan that would lead to independence, has said an agreed solution is impossible. A previous draft resolution would have automatically triggered implementation of the Ahtisaari plan if the Belgrade-Pristina talks faltered.

On Monday UN Kosovo envoy Joachim Ruecker briefed the council and warned of ''clear and present political risks'' of delaying the issue.

''We have reached a critical point where further progress on the ground depends on ensuring clarity on Kosovo's status,'' he said. Ruecker warned that Kosovo's independence-minded political leaders ''fear that the status process is losing momentum and what had appeared to have been an imminent resolution of Kosovo status will unravel.'' Reuters PDS VP0743