Kosovo, a majority-Albanian province in Serbia, has been under U.N. control since the end of the 1999 war between the NATO allies and the former Yugoslavia.
"The parties have irreconcilable positions with regard to the final status", said U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. "It is our judgment that the current situation is unsustainable".
Serbian Prime minister Vojislav Kostunica warned that international recognition of Kosovo's independence risked undermining the sovereignty and territorial integrity of U.N. members, which he said is the basis of the world body's Charter.
"If one puts that into question ... a new era and a very dangerous era in international relations may start", Kostunica said.
But Belgian Ambassador Johan Verbeke said Kosovo is a one-of-a-kind case "that does not set any precedent".
The disputed province is dear to Serbs who regard it as Serbian territory. But it is equally coveted by Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, Muslims who have a 90 percent majority.
Kostunica said his government would not go to war to prevent Kosovo from becoming independent, pressing its case under international law instead. But the Prime minister said a unilateral declaration of independence would violate the U.N. resolution that ended the 1999 conflict.
"Resolution 1244 cannot be changed by some countries or group of countries piece by piece", he said.
Kosovo has been under U.N. supervision and patrolled by a NATO-led peacekeeping force since the end of the three-month war, in which NATO warplanes pounded Serbia to roll back a campaign of "ethnic cleansing" of the province's Albanian population under former then-President Slobodan Milosevic.
The President of the province's government, Fatmir Sejdiu, told reporters that his government was ready to take steps toward declaring independence and promised his government would seek friendly relations with Serbia.
"Kosovo could never forget the tragedies that we have gone through", he said. "They will live forever in our memories. But we also committed to having good relations with the Serb people and all the peoples of the region".
Following an EU summit in Brussels last week, European leaders agreed to send an 1,800-strong security force to maintain stability in the province ahead of any declaration of independence.
But Russia, which has fought two wars against separatist rebels in its southwestern Republic of Chechnya, warned on the beginning of this week that U.S. and European support for Kosovo's independence could lead to an "uncontrollable crisis" in the Balkans.
"Certainly, Russia is not going to recognize a unilateral declaration of independence, and I can assure you that there will be very many countries in this building whose attitude to that would be very negative", Vitaly Churkin, Moscow's U.N. ambassador, said Wednesday. "But let's not jump to conclusions".
Washington and its European allies urged Russia to embrace former Finnish President Marti Ahtisaari's proposal for a kind of supervised independence for Kosovo, but Kostunica called the plan dead.
Khalilzad said the United States believes the plan can be implemented without violating the cease-fire resolution, and it should be done "in order not to allow the situation to get out of control in Kosovo and pose a threat to peace and stability".
Source : ONU/AP