Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs, said Monday that if the UN Security Council does not adopt a new resolution on Kosovo granting the province independence, the U.S. would unilaterally support a declaration by Kosovo's Albanian authorities on separation from Serbia.
"The U.S. position, in favor of full independence for Kosovo, which was enunciated by Nicholas Burns, runs counter to UN Security Council Resolution 1244, enshrining Serbia's territorial integrity," the Serbian government said in a statement.
It said any unilateral recognition of Kosovo's independence is a gross violation of the UN Charter.
Serbia is strongly opposed to independence for the province, which is dominated by ethnic Albanians, but the United States and the European Union have expressed support for sovereignty.
However, only four out of 15 member-states at the UN Security Council voted for a plan proposed by Martti Ahtisaari, the UN envoy for Kosovo, advocating internationally supervised sovereignty for the province during a first round of consultations April 3.
Russia, a veto-wielding UN Security Council member, objects to the plan as threatening to set a precedent for other breakaway republics, including the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Moldova.
Moscow proposed sending a UN mission to Kosovo instead in a bid to try and forge a compromise between the Albanian majority and ethnic Serbian minority before resuming UN consultations. The UN agreed to send an observer mission next week.
Kosovo, which has a population of two million, has been a UN protectorate since NATO's 78-day bombing campaign against the former Yugoslavia ended a war between Serb forces and Albanian separatists in 1999.
