Kosovo asks Serbs to accept separate, cordial future

VIENNA, Aug 30 (Reuters) The leaders of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority urged Serbia today to stop trying to block independence for the breakaway province and instead look to a future of friendly relations between two sovereign states.

The Kosovo Albanians were first to meet international mediators in Vienna for last-chance talks on Kosovo's future. The Serbs were meeting the envoys from Russia, the United States and European Union later in the day.

There is not a glimmer of a breakthrough in sight. Kosovo Albanians demand independence after eight years under United Nations rule, but Serbs insist they can never have it.

''We have the opportunity to give real clarity to Kosovo's independence,'' Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku told the diplomatic ''troika'', according to a statement.

''The core of this is our relationship with Serbia. We have the opportunity to lay the foundations for a mature, stable functioning relationship between independent neighbours.'' Serbs and Albanians talked past each other for 13 months until March when UN mediator Martti Ahtisaari called a halt. He said agreement was impossible and proposed independence under the supervision of the EU.

But Russia, an ally of Serbia, blocked adoption of his plan at the UN Security Council. The West reluctantly agreed to new talks, hoping to wrap them up by December 10 when the envoys report back to the UN Russia rejects that deadline.

In a conciliatory statement read to reporters after the meeting, the Kosovo team said they insisted the Ahtisaari package ''cannot be renegotiated'' and hoped that the talks will ''make sure that the Western Balkans finally enter an era of peaceful existence.'' BRUTAL CRACKDOWN The Serbia of late hardliner Slobodan Milosevic made Kosovo's large Albanian majority a fearful underclass in the 1990s. But they took up arms, provoking a brutal crackdown, and drew NATO in on their side in 1999 to grasp victory.

Kosovo has been occupied by NATO ever since, now with 16,000 soldiers from 35 nations, and the Albanians say they will never again be part of a country that tried to wipe them out.

Serbia says Kosovo independence would violate international law.

Foreign diplomats fear that, faced with the inevitable, Belgrade could use hardball tactics to suffocate the new state economically, such as blocking access roads.

The two sides were meeting separately with the envoys today, with direct talks expected in October or November.

Diplomats and some Kosovo politicians forecast unrest if the deadlock continues. Kosovo has said it will move to a unilateral declaration of independence after Dec 10.

The EU envoy, Wolfgang Ischinger, made clear today that the process was not open-ended. The mediators can work until Dec 10, he said. ''We don't have a mandate beyond that.'' But any unilateral move could split the 27-member EU, which is struggling to hold a united line on Kosovo. A few EU members oppose independence for their own reasons, preferring a ''frozen conflict'' solution -- which analysts say is illusory.

Ahtisaari's deputy Albert Rohan agrees.

''If Russia continues to block, there are only two options,'' he told Austrian daily Die Presse. ''Either you don't solve the problem at all, or you solve it -- with great regret -- outside of the Security Council.'' REUTERS PD RAI1852