He said the role of the troika of international mediators -- Russia, the European Union, and the United States -- is not to "force a particular solution."

A potential partition of Kosovo would likely involve a split of the province's northern part, where most of the ethnic-Serbian minority lives, from the ethnic-Albanian-dominated rest of the separatist province.

Both Serbia and its ally Russia have opposed a Western-backed UN plan to grant Kosovo independence.

On August 30, representatives of Kosovo and Serbia again failed to make a breakthrough in talks overseen by international mediators.

The same day, Kosovo's Prime Minister Agim Ceku said the province would declare independence unilaterally if current negotiations on its status do not "open a way for us."

Copyright (c) 2006. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org