BELGRADE - Former Russian prime minister Yevgeny Primakov said on Wednesday that the ethnic partition of Kosovo was the only option to avoid future conflict, and it would entail population movements.

Kosovo's 90 percent Albanian majority declared independence from Serbia on Feb 17 with Western support. Russia backs Serbia in its firm opposition to the move, which they say is an illegal secession.

About 120,000 Serbs still live in Kosovo, about half in a northern strip bordering on Serbia proper and the rest in scattered and isolated enclaves to the east and south.

"The best solution would be now for Serbs to move out of southern parts to northern parts, which are closer to Serbia, and then to join Serbia," Primakov said in an interview with Belgrade daily Vecernje Novosti.

"I still think partition is the only solution. If not, there will be constant conflicts and innocent people will suffer," he added.

The Albanians, the West and the Serbs have all insisted for their own reasons in the past that partition is not an option, although some Western diplomats suspect it has always been on the Serb agenda as a "plan B".

Primakov, Russia's peace envoy to Belgrade in 1999 just before NATO launched a bombing campaign that drove Serb forces out of Kosovo, has no formal political role but gives informal advice to the Kremlin on various foreign policy issues.

The idea of more Balkan population moves, following the ethnic upheavals of Bosnia and Croatia in the Yugoslav wars of independence in the 1990s is not a welcome prospect for NATO and the European Union, which are the region's mentors and guarantors. However, Serbia has recently proposed separate administration by Belgrade of Kosovo Serb communities -- a de facto form of partition.

Primakov along with former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger serves on an informal two-member commission which periodically meets senior officials in Moscow and Washington.

Primakov has warned in the past of the impact Kosovo independence might have on the situation in the region, with "Albanians becoming active in Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia" and Serbs and Croats seeking secession in Bosnia.

"One thing should be kept in mind, that giving independence to Kosovo means the start of creating a Muslim state in the middle of Europe," he said.

Kosovo's two million Albanians are nominally Muslim but secular in reality. There is no record of Islamic fundamentalism in Kosovo and no sign of incipient religious radicalisation. (Reporting by Ljilja Cvekic, writing by Douglas Hamilton; editing by Sami Aboudi)