Belgrade: The Serbian minister for Kosovo said on Friday his government has information that the province's Albanian leadership will declare independence on February 17.
Slobodan Samardzic said in a statement that "the government of Serbia is receiving relevant information" that Kosovo's government will "illegally declare unilateral independence of Kosovo on Sunday, February 17." He did not specify the source of information.
The Kosovo Albanian leadership has said it will declare independence from Serbia "in a matter of days," but has never specified the exact date.
Serbia strongly rejects the statehood of Kosovo even though the southern province has not been under its control since Nato's bombing in 1999 to stop a crackdown against the Kosovo Albanian separatists.
Samardzic's statement was issued after a meeting with a senior European Union official, Stefan Lehne, who was in Belgrade to clarify the bloc's plans to send an EU policing and administrative mission to Kosovo.
Samardzic said Serbia will not sign any cooperation agreement with the EU, arguing it would amount to "the signature for the independence of Kosovo."
The Serbian government has been deadlocked over its ties with the EU, with nationalist Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica's faction rejecting closer ties with the EU because of the Kosovo issue, while the pro-Western groups allied to President Boris Tadic advocate quick Serbian integration into the bloc.
