February 15, 2008	Friday	Safar 07, 1429

BELGRADE, Feb 14: Serbia’s government on Thursday denounced any unilateral declaration of Kosovo’s independence -- expected within days -- as “invalid and void”.

Serbia issued the defiant declaration hours before the UN Security Council met at Belgrade’s request to discuss Kosovo.

“Such a (move) would represent a flagrant and unilateral act of secession of a part of the territory of the Republic of Serbia, and is therefore invalid and void,” the Serbian government said.

A secret “action plan” to be implemented when Kosovo declares independence is believed to include retaliatory steps to encourage the province’s 100,000-strong Serb minority to shun the declaration and formally keep their territories under Belgrade’s control -- a de facto partitioning of the province of two million people.

The action plan contains no provisions for military action against Kosovo, now monitored by 16,000 Nato troops.

“Kosovo remains an inalienable part of Serbia,” Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica told reporters, adding that Serbian authorities will “expand, strengthen and beef up” their presence in Kosovo.

The government statement said all Serbs living in Kosovo remain “citizens of Serbia and have the full right not to recognise any illegal declaration of unilateral independence” by Kosovo’s Albanians.

The government also demanded that the UN Security Council “immediately annul” any Kosovo declaration of independence.

In Pristina, Kosovo’s capital, a lawmaker said the Serbian resolution would have no bearing on Kosovo’s intention to declare independence.

“What Serbia does is irrelevant,” legislator Vlora Citaku said. “Serbia can only invalidate decisions of its own assembly. Kosovo has its own path and one that is internationally supported.”

Kosovo, where 90 per cent of the population is ethnic Albanian, has been administered by the United Nations with backing from NATO troops since 1999, when NATO waged an air war to stop a Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.

In April of last year, UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari recommended that Kosovo be granted internationally supervised independence.

But the internationally mediated talks that followed failed to yield an agreement between the ethnic Albanian leadership, who sought full statehood, and Serbia, which refuses to give up a province it considers its historic heartland. Kosovo is expected to declare independence unilaterally on Sunday or Monday.

—Agencies