UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari on Saturday declared an end to the fruitless search for Serb-Albanian compromise on Kosovo and said he would send his independence proposal to the UN Security Council this month.
Ahtisaari said leaders of Serbia and Kosovo's 90-percent ethnic Albanian majority had again failed to agree on a solution to the fate of the breakaway Serbian province following a meeting in Vienna, the last in a year of dialogue.
"It is my intention to finalise the proposal for submission to the UN Security Council in the course of this month," he told a news conference.
"I would have very much preferred that this process would lead to a negotiated solution, but it has left me in no doubt that the parties stands ... do not contain any common ground to reach such an agreement."
Ahtisaari and his Western backers had long given up hope of an agreed solution to the fate of Kosovo, run by the United Nations since Nato bombed to drive out Serb forces in 1999.
Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica called for more talks, saying Ahtisaari's blueprint represented a "brutal violation of the UN charter". "I appeal for negotiations to continue," he told a news conference. "This proposal does not meet the conditions to be presented to the UN Security Council."
Ten thousand Albanians died and almost one million fled during Serbia's 1998-99 counter-insurgency war. The West now wants the council to impose a solution by June, seeing no prospect of forcing 2 million Albanians back into the arms of Serbia and fearing unrest if they are frustrated much longer.
Russia remains the only potential stumbling block. Serbia's fellow Orthodox Christian ally insists time be given for both sides to agree on a solution, but has pointedly avoided threatening the use of its council veto.
Asked whether Moscow might veto the plan, Serbian President Boris Tadic replied: "That is going to be up to the Russians to decide what position they will take in the Security Council."
Though it avoids the word independence, the blueprint sets out the framework for an independent state, under a foreign overseer and European Union police mission. It offers self-government and protection for the 100,000 remaining Serbs.
Unveiled in February, the plan's limitations have won a frosty and at times violent reaction from some Albanians. But their leaders have accepted it. Nato allies leading 16,500 troops in Kosovo fear further delay would only bring violence.
Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu told the meeting that independence was "the beginning and end of our position". "This is the future of Kosovo, a modern state which came to fruition after a history of resistance to foreign occupation."
If Ahtisaari's plan is adopted, Kosovo could declare independence by the end of the year, becoming Europe's newest state and the last to be carved from the former Yugoslavia.
Serbia appeals for talks to continue Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica called on Saturday for negotiations on the fate of Kosovo to continue, saying a Western-backed plan for its eventual independence was unacceptable.
"I appeal for negotiations to continue," he told reporters after UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari declared an end to a year of Serb-Albanian talks that failed to find any compromise. "This proposal does not meet the conditions to be presented to the UN Security Council."