Russia says U.S. stand on Kosovo harmful to talks

Russian envoy to the Kosovo troikahas accused the United States of harming the negotiation efforts by saying that the United States would unilaterally recognized the independence of the Serbian southern breakaway province.

"I absolutely do not support such a stand and the messages from the United States. I did not expect that from the United States when the talks are resuming," Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko said in an interview published by the Serbia's daily Vecernje Novosti on Wednesday.

Some U.S. official has threatened that the United States would recognize the independence of Kosovo if, by the end of the year, extended talks between Belgrade and Pristina do not produce any solutions to the province which has been run by the United Nations for eight years since mid-1999.

"These messages will not be conducive to the negotiating process, on the contrary, it will do the opposite," news reaching here from Belgrade quoted Botsan-Kharchenko as saying.

Botsan-Kharchenko has also insisted that there is no deadline for the talks over the future status of Kosovo which Serbia wants to keep it within its border while the majority ethnic Albanians of the province ask for full independence.

The troika, composed of representatives from the European Union, the United States and Russia, is supposed to submit the report of the talks to the UN Secretary General on Dec. 10.

"The date is not a deadline for the completion of the talks, but only a deadline for the troika," he said.

"Russia is strongly opposed to any set deadlines. So the talks will continue after that date until a compromise solution is found," Botsan-Kharchenko insisted.

He underscored that Russia will not give up its stand that the last decision on the Kosovo issue has to be made by the UN Security Council, saying that everything else would be violation of international law, and unacceptable to Russia.