PRISTINA: In the search for a solution for restive Kosovo, many minority Serbs are prepared to stick with its tense divide along ethnic lines but vow never to accept the independence demanded by Albanians.

The province, part of Serbia and Montenegro, remains under UN administration after four years to keep peace between the estranged communities.

Oliver Ivanovic, a Kosovo Serb leader, is among those who favour maintaining the status quo “for a period of 10 to 15 years”.

“We will be advancing well towards Europe and we may be at a point of integrating together — Serbia-Montenegro and Kosovo — into the European Union.

“Then, the question of borders will be much less important,” he said.

Ivanovic, a deputy from the ethnically divided northern town of Kosovska Mitrovica, said a delegation of Kosovo Serb representatives is planning to tour key western states in the coming months.

Their aim: to persuade the international community not to rush any examination of a final status for Kosovo.

Most of the fewer than 100,000 Serbs in Kosovo live in enclaves, surrounded by the southern province’s two million Albanians who have been pushing hard for independence from Serbia.

Ivanovic said inter-ethnic relations were “very bad” and Serbs’ security here remains uncertain despite the fact that UN administrators have made it one of their priorities.

Kosovo has been under United Nations control since June 1999.

The Kosovo Serbs back UN Security Council Resolution 1244 that envisages substantial autonomy for the province within the Yugoslav Federation, which was replaced in February by Serbia and Montenegro.

The Albanians however hope the provisional institutions established two years ago — a multi-ethnic parliament and government as well as presidency — will lead to independence.—AFP