Serbia warned the United Nations yesterday of "unforeseeable consequences" that could destabilise the world if the breakaway province of Kosovo declares independence unilaterally later this year.
Serbian President Boris Tadic urged the UN General Assembly to avoid creating what he said would be a dangerous legal precedent. His call came hours before foreign ministers of the United States, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and Italy met at UN headquarters on the future of Kosovo.
Mr Tadic said Kosovo Albanian leaders were threatening to declare independence on December 11th if talks brokered by the major powers failed, and he warned the world against recognition.
Serbian President Boris Tadic
"Following a one-sided recognition of Kosovo's independence, the international legal order would never be the same," he said. Separatist movements everywhere would seize on the precedent, he said.
"Many regions of the world would be destabilised that way."
Mr Tadic reaffirmed Belgrade's position that independence for Kosovo was unacceptable and said Serbia was willing to offer broad autonomy in line with European norms - a stance the West calls unrealistic and that Kosovo's two million Albanians reject.
Nato waged an air war to drive Serbian forces out of the province in 1999 and end ethnic cleansing against the Albanians in Belgrade's crackdown on separatists. Kosovo has been in legal limbo under UN supervision since then.
Serbian and Kosovo Albanian leaders are due to hold their first face-to-face talks today in a negotiating process due to conclude on December 10th.