July 18, 2006 8:42 AM

BRUSSELS, Belgium-Serbia's president warned Tuesday that if the province of Kosovo is allowed to secede, it could create instability in the Balkans and set a precedent for independence movements around the world.

President Boris Tadic also indicated he had not decided whether to attend an unprecedented round of direct talks with Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders next week in Vienna, as proposed by U.N. mediator Martti Ahtisaari.

Belgrade strongly opposes the possible independence for the region of two million people, which has been a de facto international protectorate since NATO forced Serbia's then-dictator Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw his troops from the province in a brief war in 1999.

But ethnic Albanians, who account for 90 percent of the province's people, are demanding independence, insisting they can never again be ruled by Belgrade.

Serbia's new democratic government has proposed granting the province self-rule backed by international guarantees, while formally retaining it within the borders of Serbia.

"From my point of view (independence) is not going to be a useful solution," Tadic said at a news conference with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

"An independent Kosovo would be a precedent, it is going to be a problem for regional stability not only for the Balkans but for other regions in the world," Tadic said.

Analysts have said that if Kosovo is allowed to break away from Serbia, whose province it has been since the early Middle Ages, this would almost certainly be used by many other territories to justify their own secessionist designs.

These potentially include regions as diverse as Spain's Catalonia and the Basque country, Georgia's breakaway South Ossetia and Abkhazia statelets, Moldavia's rebellious Trans-Dniester, Azerbaijan's disputed Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, and Indonesia's war-torn provinces of Aceh and West Papua.

Ahtisaari, the U.N. envoy, is currently trying to bridge the differences in talks on Kosovo's future status being held in Vienna. On Monday, he said he would try to bring the presidents and prime ministers of both Kosovo and Serbia together for the first time to discuss political issues.

Kosovo's President Fatmir Sejdiu and Prime Minister Agim Ceku have agreed to attend, but Tadic and Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica have not yet confirmed.

"We are expecting that Mr. Ahtisaari will send us some conditions for the talks," Tadic said without elaborating. "We will then decide whether to participate."

Tadic visited Brussels a day after Kostunica briefed EU leaders on the details of a new plan to track down and arrest fugitive war crimes suspect Gen. Ratko Mladic.

Serbia's failure to arrest Mladic, wanted on charges stemming from the 1992-95 war in Bosnia, and hand him to the U.N. tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, led the EU to suspend talks on a so-called Stabilization and Association agreement. This is a stepping stone to possible membership in the bloc, and is considered crucial for the country's stability and economic growth.

Although no details of the new three-page plan were released, officials said it details measures to apprehend Mladic, who is wanted on charges of involvement in genocide during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. It also calls for the appointment of a government coordinator to put the plan into effect, who would have daily contact with U.N. prosecutors.

The plan is closely modeled on a similar document presented by neighboring Croatia last year, when Zagreb's talks with the EU were jeopardized by its failure to catch an army general indicted for crimes against humanity.

Belgrade is hoping the bloc will accept its assurances and restart negotiations even if Mladic remains at large, just as it did in Croatia's case.

Barroso welcomed the plan, but stopped short of endorsing a resumption of talks before Mladic's capture.

He underlined, however, that if full cooperation with the U.N. court is achieved, "there is still time to achieve the Stabilization and Association Agreement by the end of the year."

"It is not fair for the Serbian people that because of one or a few (individuals) that are accused of being war criminals, that the democratic and European future of Serbia is put on hold," Barroso said.