US commander denies "NATO state" Kosovo plan

BELGRADE, Aug 16 (Reuters) The commander of US troops in Kosovo denied today Serbian allegations the United States planned to turn the breakaway province into a ''NATO state''.

In the latest attack on Western support for Kosovo's independence, Interior Minister Dragan Jocic said Washington ''must give up the dangerous experiment that started with (the) illegal and ruthless destruction of our country''.

Kosovo is currently run by the United Nations and patrolled by a peacekeeping force of 16,000 troops led by NATO, including 1,500 from the United States.

''NATO has no intention of forming a state in Kosovo since it is here in a peacekeeping mission,'' Brigadier General Douglas Earhart told a news conference in the east Kosovo town of Gnjilane.

''The United Nations, European Union and United States are all involved in the process to decide Kosovo's status.'' Jocic was speaking to state news agency Tanjug. Tanjug has quoted a number of government officials this week accusing NATO allies -- Washington in particular -- of plotting to seize Serb territory illegally for their own purposes.

Led by the United States, NATO bombed strategic targets in Serbia for 78 days in 1999, forcing the late autocrat Slobodan Milosevic to pull his troops from Kosovo.

The allies say this intervention prevented Serbia from completing a ruthless plan to expel Kosovo's two million ethnic Albanians, 90 per cent of the population.

Serbia insists on maintaining its legal sovereignty over the land and is offering the people wide autonomy, but not a share in governing Serbia as equal citizens.

It foresees NATO and a European Union supervisory mission staying on ''for up to 20 years'' to ensure stability, a prospect the Western allies and the United Nations dismiss.

Serbia has acquired Russian backing for its opposition to Kosovo Albanian demands for independence, and Moscow has forced the US and its European Union allies to mediate a further round of talks in search of a compromise solution.

The first round is expected later this month.

REUTERS SV RN2004