US and Europeans try to avert breakaway by Kosovo with new year recognition pledge

· Russian backing for Serbia could bring crisis in weeks
· Belgrade may encourage Serb secession in Bosnia

The US and the main European powers are attempting to delay the looming crisis in Kosovo with a deal to head off an immediate unilateral declaration of independence, it emerged yesterday. Risking a showdown with Serbia and Russia, which bitterly oppose independence, the EU and the Americans will offer Kosovo's Albanian leaders prompt recognition of independence, sometime in January, said UN officials in the territory and European diplomats.

With a deadline of December 10 looming after almost two years of futile negotiations between Belgrade and Kosovo's leaders over the status of the southern Balkan province, the talks shift into the final stage today in Brussels, when a troika of EU, US and Russian envoys mediates between the two sides.

"In 100 days we've explored almost every humanly known option of squaring the circle of Kosovo status," said Wolfgang Ischinger, the seasoned German diplomat and EU envoy who chairs the negotiations, signalling that he did not expect any breakthrough.

While Belgrade proposes extensive home rule for Kosovo within Serbia, the majority Albanian province will settle for nothing less than independence. The two positions appear unbridgeable.

Today's talks are to be followed by a final round in Vienna next week before the troika reports to the UN security council by December 10 on the inevitable failure of the negotiations.

Fresh from a weekend election victory, Kosovo's new leader, Hashem Thaci, is threatening to issue a unilateral declaration of Kosovo independence immediately after December 10. European officials and UN staff in Kosovo, however, say he is certain to put off his UDI in order to maximise international support. "Thaci will be in a very strong position, but he won't do anything without a green light from Washington and the key EU states," said a UN official in Kosovo's capital, Pristina. "He's listening to the Americans very carefully. They are shooting for mid-January."

For months, the Europeans have been divided over whether to recognise Kosovo without a security council mandate for a new EU mission to oversee the independence plan drawn up by the UN envoy and ex-Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari. The Europeans had also been resisting US pressure for quick recognition.

While dissenters remain - Cyprus, Slovakia and Greece - the big EU governments now agree that there will be no Serb-Albanian agreement, nor any agreement at the security council, and appear resigned to taking the recognition plunge. They also argue that prompt recognition after a Kosovo declaration could forestall the prospect of violence.

Ischinger said that the past few months had produced greater EU consensus, and the chances of a split over Kosovo had receded. "The EU was never in the driver's seat, it was in the back seat. But the troika process has given the EU a new sense of ownership and responsibility for the future of Kosovo."

Serbia - strongly backed by Russia which threatened to veto the Ahtisaari package if it was put to the security council - rejects both the Finnish president's plan and a "status-neutral" pact between Belgrade and Pristina currently being proposed by Ischinger. The pact would seek to regulate relations between Belgrade and Pristina while leaving the key issue of status unresolved.

A declaration of independence would invalidate the proposed pact, which the Serbs, in any case, oppose.

The Serbs and the Russians want the negotiations to continue after stalemate is confirmed on December 10, but everyone else says there is no point. "December 10 is not a deadline, it's a benchmark," said Yevgeniy Chizhov, the Russian ambassador in Brussels and an expert on the Balkans. "The security council then decides whether to extend or change the mandate of the troika." But Ischinger, backed by the Americans and the Europeans, is certain to recommend that there is no point in further negotiations.

Chizhov warned of a disastrous fallout from western backing for independence. "Those who recognise UDI will be making a strategic mistake of global proportions."

Belgrade yesterday said Kosovo's breakaway could have a domino effect, implicitly threatening to partition Kosovo and encourage Serbian secession from half of Bosnia. "If the independence of Kosovo is recognised it would not be the final stage of the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, but the first stage of new disintegration and secession in the Balkans," said its minister for Kosovo, Slobodan Samardzic.

Nato forces and the UN mission in Kosovo have prepared contingency plans for various ugly scenarios, including ethnic violence and pogroms, attacks by shadowy paramilitary groups on both sides, an exodus of Serbs from the main body of Kosovo, a refugee crisis and a Serbian seizure in the north, partitioning Kosovo.

FAQ Kosovo

Why independence?
The former Yugoslav province of two million, overwhelmingly ethnic Albanians, insists on becoming an independent state, like all the other parts of former Yugoslavia. Serbia, of which Kosovo is formally a part, refuses to yield, arguing it will never forfeit 15% of its territory under international "blackmail".

What's at stake?
A lot. A possible new war in the Balkans. A big test for EU foreign policy-making, since an EU mission is supposed to move in in the union's first big nation-building project. Greater hostility between Russia and the west, with the Kremlin supporting Serbia.

How did we get here?
The late Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia tried to impose his rule in Kosovo in 1998-99, driving out hundreds of thousands of Albanians in an epidemic of ethnic cleansing. Nato, in its first war, intervened to drive out the Serbs and restore Kosovo to the Albanians. Ever since, Kosovo has been under UN and Nato protection. Serbia has had no say since 1999, but formally Kosovo is still part of Serbia.

What next?
There is a December 10 deadline for the end of fruitless negotiations. The west then looks likely to back a Kosovo announcement of independence. After that, all bets are off. (Ian Traynor in Brussels / Guardian)