The Serbian government says it has adopted a list of proposed rules for negotiations on the future status of Kosovo. Government officials say the proposed guidelines were sent Friday to the ambassadors of the six countries that make up the Contact Group.

Belgrade and Pristina plan to hold another round of negotiations on the status of Kosovo late next week, a source in the Russian Foreign Ministry said Friday.

Serbia's minister for Kosovo confirmed that Belgrade has been receiving off-the-record proposals that it form a confederation with its predominantly Albanian province, but said such an agreement was out of the question.

Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic says a compromise solution can be found in settling the future of the disputed Serbian province of Kosovo.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today welcomed an agreement to have a troika comprised of the European Union, Russian Federation and United States lead further negotiations on the future status of Kosovo, the Serbian province administered by the United Nations since 1999.

Russia is against setting artificial timetables to decide Kosovo's status and attempts to predetermine the outcome, the Foreign Ministry's spokesman said Tuesday. Mikhail Kamynin said status talks could start soon "if they are thoroughly prepared by the Contact Group."

Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic was in Washington Friday where he met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other high-level U.S. officials, mainly to discuss the contentious issue of independence for the disputed Serbian province of Kosovo.

Amid a flurry of diplomatic activity regarding the future status of Kosovo, the Bush administration is stressing that it still supports a U.N. plan that would grant provisional independence to the U.N.-administered Serbian province.

The Serbian president said in an interview with Russian media Thursday that there is no link between European Union membership and a solution to the Kosovo problem.

The Serbian prime minister said Wednesday that the plan by UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari, which would have ceded 15% of the Balkan state's territory, has failed.

Co-sponsors in the talks on the status of Kosovo will continue negotiations within the Contact Group in Vienna Wednesday. Britain, France, Italy, Germany, the United States and Russia will meet for the first time after a draft resolution on Kosovo by UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari was removed from consideration in the UN Security Council last week under pressure from veto-wielding Moscow.

The Serbian parliament has warned the United States and the European Union against recognizing Kosovo's independence without UN consent. Serbian lawmakers passed a resolution late in the day on July 24 promising an "energetic response" against countries that might recognize independence for the mainly ethnic-Albanian province.