Kosovo's Prime Minister set the scene for continued standoff over the political status of the contested province Monday by refusing to consider any solution other than independence at meetings this week.

Belgrade and Pristina should be given more time if they fail to reach an agreement on Kosovo by December 10, when the UN is due to deliver a report on the province, a Russian Foreign Ministry official said Wednesday.

Violence involving ethnic Albanians in Macedonia has sparked concerns that tensions over the unresolved status of Kosovo are beginning to bubble over. The most recent incident came on September 10 when a police commander and a gunman were killed in a clash in an ethnic Albanian village near Macedonia's border with Kosovo.

European Union foreign ministers are seeking a united position on Kosovo in discussions on the future of the disputed Serbian province today at a meeting in Portugal.

New York will host talks between rival Serbs and Kosovo Albanians later this month to try to break a deadlock over the future of the breakaway province, an official said.

Russia says it will accept the partition of the Serbian province of Kosovo if that is what both Belgrade and Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority agree on. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov made the remark today at a news briefing in Moscow.

International mediators say Serbian and ethnic Albanian officials have pledged to refrain from statements that could jeopardize negotiations on the future status of Serbia's breakaway Kosovo province.

Kosovo's Prime Minister Agim Ceku says the Serbian province will declare independence unilaterally if current negotiations on its status do not "open a way for us."

Two of the leading politicians involved in the ongoing talks on the future of Kosovo noted recently that the discussions are likely to lead nowhere. There are perhaps some other basic points regarding Kosovo that have become obscured in the heated debates of recent months and are worth recalling.

Envoys from the United States, the European Union and Russia began talks today with Serbian leaders on the future status of Kosovo. The mediators held talks in Belgrade with Serbian President Boris Tadic and Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, and Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic.

What future for Kosovo? Early last spring, it seemed the formally Serbian province populated mostly by ethnic Albanians was poised to gain full independence, in accordance with a plan by United Nations envoy Martti Ahtisaari, the former Finnish president.

Serbia will not recognize Kosovo's independence in exchange for its membership to the European Union, the Serbian ambassador to Russia said.