Kosovo Independence

"We need a soft landing on this issue or we'll have a hard crash,'' Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt told reporters before an EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday.

Former Kosovo Albanian guerrilla leader Hashim Thaci, who looks likely to become the province's new leader, vowed to declare independence from Serbia after exit polls showed his PDK party won Saturday's election.

Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik said Thaci's call didn't come as a surprise but urged Kosovo Albanians and Serbs not to exacerbate their already growing tensions.

"The EU has asked all parties in this climate to behave carefully. That applies to both Belgrade and Pristina," Plassnik said.

Thaci vows to respect deadline

However, in an interview published on Monday in the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Thaci said that he would respect the agenda set by mediators from the EU, US and Russia up to December 10, when a United Nations deadline on the status of the Albanian-majority province runs out.

"I do not expect a compromise between Kosovo and Serbia, but we will respect the agenda of the Troika up to December 10," said Thaci.

Serbia, with Russian support, is strongly opposed to any form of independence and is only prepared to offer broad autonomy for Kosovo, which is currently administered by the United Nations and policed by 16,000 NATO peacekeepers.

Following the deadline, Kosovo would set its own agenda, Thaci said. "It will take the decision about its own independence and I expect international support for this," he told the FAZ.

UN backing preferred

The US has previously signaled it supports Kosovo independence, but many EU member states are reluctant to support such a move without backing from the United Nations.

"Kosovo should have her independence (but) it shouldn't be an unmanaged unilateral declaration," British Europe Minister Jim Murphy said on Monday in Brussels. "It should be one that is coordinated with the international community."

He also urged the EU not to let Russia block statehood, as it did once before in the UN Security Council.

International negotiators are due to hold a further round of talks with Serb and Kosovo leaders in Brussels on Tuesday.

"We have explored almost every humanly known option for squaring the circle of the Kosovo status issue," Wolfgang Ischinger, a German diplomat leading the Troika's mediation, told a breakfast conference in Brussels.

"Regardless of how exactly this process will end ... it is clear no one will be able to say that this was not a meaningful and intense and working negotiating process," he added.

Election criticism

Council of Europe monitors said the weekend's election complied with international standards, but in a preliminary statement criticized the "alarmingly low turnout" of 43 percent, saying that this demonstrated the "profound dissatisfaction" of the province's 1.5 million eligible voters.

"The people in Kosovo are fed up with their political situation," said German MEP Doris Pack, who acted as an election observer.

Pressured by the Serbian government, Saturday's elections were boycotted by Kosovo's Serb minority, who number around 120,000.

Thaci's Democratic Party of Kosovo scored 35 percent of the vote, beating the 22 percent of the Democratic League of Kosovo according to preliminary results. The first official results are due later on Tuesday.