The U.N. mediator on Kosovo has rejected a Russian call for more talks between Serbia and ethnic Albanians in the disputed province, saying discussions have been exhausted, the Reuters news agency reported on Monday quoting the mediator’s spokesman.

“Our position hasn’t changed,” Remi Dourlot, the spokesman for U.N. mediator Martti Ahtisaari, said. “The talks held between the two parties in Vienna have been exhausted.”

Russia on Saturday called for the negotiations, which Ahtisaari halted on March 10, to continue. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov suggested a new envoy be appointed if Ahtisaari “thinks he has done all he can.”

Former Finnish president Ahtisaari last week forwarded his plan for the ’supervised independence’ of Serbia’s breakaway southern province to the United Nations, having declared an end to 13 months of fruitless Serb-Albanian dialogue in Austria.

Dourlot said Ahtisaari had delivered his plan “within the framework” set by the six-power Contact Group of the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Russia.

“The way forward is now in the hands of the U.N. secretary-general, the Security Council and the Contact Group,” he said.

The West backs the plan for the province, run by the United Nations since NATO bombs drove out Serb forces in 1999. The 90-percent Albanian majority is impatient for independence.

Diplomats say Western powers heading a 16,500-strong NATO peace force in Kosovo had set an unofficial deadline of end-June to adopt a U.N. resolution endorsing Ahtisaari’s blueprint for independence, supervised by the EU for years to come.

Former U.S. Balkans envoy Richard Holbrooke said on Monday that violence could explode in Kosovo as early as next month if Russia stalls the plan.

“If the Russians delay or dilute or veto it, then I’m afraid the long pent-up desire of the Albanians in Kosovo for a rapid move towards independence will explode into violence,” he told reporters in Brussels.

Ten thousand Albanians died and almost one million fled during a 1998-99 Serbian war against separatist guerrillas. The crackdown drew NATO into its first “humanitarian” war and Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations since.

Russia has insisted the solution should be acceptable to both sides, something Ahtisaari says is impossible.

Popularity: 1% [?]