Vladimir Putin called for patience over Kosovo’s fate before today’s EU/Russia summit, but time is running out for tough decisions on the future of the breakaway Serbian province.

The Russian leader solidly backs Serbia’s strong opposition to Kosovan independence but the tide of opinion is against him as international talks near their December 10 deadline.

There seems to be little room for compromise between Kosovan demands for independence and Serbian arguments that the territory, while 90 per cent inhabited by ethnic Albanians, contains some of its key historical sites and must remain under Belgrade's authority.

But Kosovo’s determination to win the same rights as other former Yugoslav states such as Croatia, Macedonia and Montenegro has ramifications far beyond its borders.

For a start, radical Serb nationalists are already talking up the possibility that the Bosnian Serb half of Bosnia-Herzegovina could vow allegiance to Serbia and break away if Kosovo gets fed up with international deadlock and decides to declare independence unilaterally.

That could trigger another period of upheaval and bloodshed in the Balkans, where the worst fighting in Europe since the Second World War took place during the 1990s.

Moreover, the province of two million people, which is currently under United Nations supervision with a devolved local government, has become the focus of international power play between Russia on the one hand and the EU and United States on the other.

Its importance as a touchstone for EU/Russian relations was emphasised by the Kremlin, which made it the key foreign policy issue for today’s summit in Portugal, ahead of Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Mr Putin is worried about setting a precedent for other breakaway regions under Russian governance, saying yesterday: “Why upset the principles of international law by encouraging separatism in Europe?”

But he has frustrated attempts to draft a United Nations resolution while the international talks on Kosovo’s future have dragged on beyond several deadlines. December 10 is widely viewed as a last chance to broker a compromise but it seems almost impossible and the US has already indicated that it would support a unilateral declaration of independence.

Wolfgang Ischinger, the EU mediator for Kosovo, acknowledged that UDI was a real possibility but said that Kosovan leaders knew it was “not good enough to lead them into paradise”.

He added: “The two sides have to realise they cannot get 100 per cent of their demands. They have to realise that if they settle for just 50 per cent, it is a much more desirable outcome for both than no agreement at all.

“They do not live on an island in the Pacific. Where will they be, for example, if the day after independence Serbia decides to close its border with Kosovo? This is why an agreement is important for Kosovo’s prosperity.”

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