Belgrade - Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica on Wednesday again warned the European Union not to send a mission to Kosovo, warning this was a step to the recognition of the breakaway province's independence. Kostunica said that the deployment of the mission would stop Serbia's approach to the EU, local media reported.
Brussels must decide between the mission and the Stabilization and Association Agreement with Belgrade, the conservative premier was quoted as saying.
The EU may decide on Monday to send a so-called law enforcement mission of some 2,000 officials to help Kosovo's first sovereign steps once it declares independence.
Kosovo leaders, representing the 90 per cent Albanian majority in what has only nominally been a Serbian province since a United Administration took it over in 1999, promised their people independence in a short order.
Unlike before, when the promise failed, this time they have the support of United States and much of EU, including the leading member states. The EU mission would replace the lumbering, inefficient UN administration.
NATO, which ousted Serbian forces to end a bloody crackdown on the Albanians, has no plans to leave the province and end its peacekeeping mission once it declares independence.
Backed by Russia, Belgrade adamantly insist on sovereignty over the province and has threatened not to sign the already initialled Stabilization and Association Agreement with EU over the Western support of Kosovo.
Kostunica vehemently opposes the planned EU mission, saying it was not welcome in Kosovo, which Belgrade claims as Serbian soil.
"The Serbian government and state institutions would see such a decision as the annulment of the initialled Stabilization and Association Agreement," Kostunica said in a statement.
In his words the mission would violate Serbian territorial integrity and sovereignty.
Kostunica has earlier repeatedly accused NATO of plans to hijack 15 per cent of Serbia and set up a puppet state in Kosovo.
