UNITED NATIONS – The United States urged Russia on Friday not to veto a U.N. resolution on the status of Kosovo, saying the Security Council would lose a role in the province’s future and hinting the ethnic Albanian majority may then unilaterally declare independence.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said the United States and the council’s European Union members, who sponsored the resolution, want action in “the next few days” and believe they have sufficient votes to adopt the latest draft, with Russia “the big question mark.”

“The ball is in Russia’s court,” Khalilzad said. “The noises that we hear from Moscow are not encouraging, but we have not heard the final word from Moscow, and it is up to Russia whether the council plays a role in deciding the next stage in regard to Kosovo or not.”

While Kosovo remains a province of Serbia, it has been under U.N. and NATO administration since a 78-day NATO-led air war that halted a Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in 1999.

In April, U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari recommended that Kosovo be granted internationally supervised independence _ a proposal strongly supported by its ethnic Albanians but vehemently rejected by its Serb minority, Serbia, and Russia, which has close cultural ties to the Serbs.

Russian officials, meanwhile, suggested Ahtisaari is biased, questioning his ability to settle the breakaway province’s dispute with Serbia over independence, and calling for more changes in the draft resolution.

The original draft endorsed Ahtisaari’s plan, which Russia immediately rejected. A revised text, also rejected by Moscow, called for four months of negotiations between Albanians and Serbs on the province’s future status _ and authorized an automatic road to independence if there was no agreement, unless the council decided otherwise.

The latest draft, obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, also calls for four months of intensive negotiations between the two sides, but without any promise of independence if talks fail. Instead, it affirms the council’s “readiness to review the situation further in light of those negotiations.”

But under the proposed draft, the U.N. would hand over administration of Kosovo to the EU 120 days after the resolution is adopted, and the EU representative in the province would become the international civilian representative. NATO-led troops would remain to help ensure security.

The latest draft resolution does not require the Security Council to take any future action on Kosovo, which could leave the EU in charge of the province’s future once it takes over _ not the U.N.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has complained that the new resolution was little more than a dressed-up version of Ahtisaari’s initial plan, and still included a “predetermination of Kosovo’s independence,” according to Russian news agencies.

Lavrov also responded to Ahtisaari’s remarks that Russia’s stature would diminish if it blocked negotiations on Kosovo’s future by hinting that Ahtisaari could be unfit to monitor talks between the leaders of Serbia and Kosovo. He said an “impartial international mediator” was needed.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Titov called Friday for changes to the U.N. plan. He did not explain Russia’s demands, but said they had been told to other Security Council nations.

Khalilzad said the sponsors met with Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin on Wednesday and Thursday to go over the new draft and answered some questions he had about “issues the draft deals with,” which the U.S. envoy refused to disclose.

According to Khalilzad, Churkin never used the word “veto” and at one point told the sponsors, “I did not say rejection.”

“We are determined to move forward either within the council or otherwise,” Khalilzad said.

There is widespread concern in the Security Council and the region that the province’s ethnic Albanian leaders could declare independence unilaterally if the council does not approve a path to independence. This could lead to a confrontation with Serbs who insist that Kosovo must remain part of Seriba.

Asked if the U.S. would support such an independence declaration, Khalilzad expressed hope that “Russia will decide to contribute positively” and not eliminate the Security Council “from playing its role on this issue” by vetoing the resolution.

“Let’s be clear also that this will not stop the situation from moving forward in Kosovo, but it will be outside the Security Council framework, which is not what we want, and it’s not the desirable way to go forward,” Khalilzad said. “That really is up to Russia now.”

A service of the Associated Press(AP)