By Matt Robinson
PRISTINA, Serbia (Reuters) - Kosovo looked forward onMonday to recognition by the Western powers who went to war tosave its Albanian majority, but Russia served notice the newstate will never be forced on its Serb allies in the territory.
Fireworks brought to a close a day of celebration in theKosovo capital Pristina, where parliament adopted a declarationof independence from Serbia and proclaimed the new Republic ofKosovo a sovereign state.
Kosovo's 2 million Albanians were left guessing whichcountry would be first to recognise the sixth state to becarved from Serb-dominated former Yugoslavia, closing a longchapter in its bloody demise.
European Union foreign ministers meet on Monday to discussKosovo's secession. Swift recognition is expected from Britain,Germany, France and Italy as well as the United States.
Proposing the independence declaration to parliament, PrimeMinister Hashim Thaci said Kosovo would be a country of "allits citizens", a gesture to the 120,000 Serbs still livinghere.
But Serbia and Russia swept that aside.
"We'll strongly warn against any attempts at repressivemeasures should Serbs in Kosovo decide not to comply with thisunilateral proclamation of independence," Russia's U.N.ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, said ahead of an emergency sessionof the U.N. Security Council, called by Moscow.
Serbs in Kosovo, led by the Serb-dominated north and withthe full backing of Belgrade, reject the territory's secession,reinforcing an ethnic partition that NATO and the UnitedNations have failed to erase since the 1998-99 war.
Protests were called for midday on Monday (11a.m. Britishtime) in Serb towns in Kosovo. Some analysts have longpredicted that de facto, although not legal, partition has beenBelgrade's "Plan B" all along.
ALL AVENUES EXHAUSTED
Most of the EU's 27 members will recognise Kosovo and willunderwrite it with a 2,000-strong rule-of-law mission to takeover supervision of the new state from the United Nations. Butat least six EU members are reluctant.
In New York, seven Western countries on the U.N. SecurityCouncil said the body could not agree on the future of Kosovo.
But they said Sunday's events marked the end of a process"that has exhausted all avenues in pursuit of a negotiatedoutcome".
Almost two years of Serb-Albanian negotiations ended inDecember with neither side giving ground on the key issue ofsovereignty.
Kosovo Albanians say there is no going back after Serbforces killed thousands and drove out almost one million in atwo-year war against separatist guerrillas. NATO bombed for 11weeks in 1999 to force a withdrawal of Serb forces, and theUnited Nations took control.
The Serb-dominated north has resisted attempts by the U.N.mission to extend its writ north of the River Ibar.
The new EU mission will face the same challenge. That wasunderlined within hours of Saturday's declaration by handgrenades lobbed at EU and U.N. buildings in the Serb strongholdof Mitrovica.
"In the next period Serbia will function as a state inKosovo in the areas where Serbs live as the majority," SerbMinister for Kosovo Slobodan Samardzic said in Mitrovica,speaking in English. "It is so because Serbs recognise only onestate, and that is Serbia."
(Editing by Matthew Tostevin)
