(Adds newspaper report, paragraph 22)

By Matt Robinson

PRISTINA, Serbia, Dec 6 (Reuters) - A Kosovo TV station has for months displayed a number at the top of screens, counting down the days until mediators report to the United Nations on failed talks on the breakaway Serbian province's future.

TV21's countdown ends on Monday, when the report is due. The station's chief, Eugen Saracini, says it has become a countdown to nothing.

The Russian, U.S. and European mediators acknowledge their report on four months of talks with representatives of Serbia and Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority will not resolve differences over the province's status or propose a way forward.

In the absence of a deal, Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders say they will declare independence. This will set up a showdown with Serbia and Russia, Belgrade's big power backer, which oppose the southern province breaking away.

But weeks or months could pass before the independence declaration, even though it has broad Western backing.

"Kosovo will not declare independence the day after Dec 10," Hajredin Kuci, an ally of Kosovo prime minister-apparent Hashim Thaci, told Reuters. "But we will do it very soon after, in coordination with our allies."

Even a date to make the declaration may not be set before mid-January because talks on a coalition government are barely underway following an election in Kosovo last month.

The United States and almost all 27 EU member states regard Kosovo's independence as the best option for stability in the Balkans, which suffered years of conflict in the 1990s after the collapse of Yugoslavia.

But they want a smooth handover from U.N. to EU supervision, and hope to avoid any sudden moves that might weaken EU unity. "I know the people of Kosovo have enough maturity to let those international mechanisms work ... and then go from there," Kosovo's U.N. administrator, Joachim Ruecker, said on Wednesday.

"It is very, very important to get the next steps right."

U.N. TO DISCUSS REPORT

EU mediator Wolfgang Ischinger said in London on Thursday that the report would reach the United Nations "either before or during the weekend". The U.N. Security Council will take it up on Dec 19, when Russia will almost certainly seek more talks.

The West believes this would be pointless.

Kosovo's 2 million Albanians -- 90 percent of the population, vastly outnumber the 120,000 Serbs who live mainly in scattered enclaves protected by the NATO.

Serbia lost control of Kosovo -- which it reveres as its religious heartland -- in 1999, when NATO carried out bombing raids for 11 weeks to halt killing and ethnic cleansing of Albanians by Serb forces fighting separatist guerrillas.

The issue lay dormant until 2004, when Albanian riots caught 16,000 NATO troops off guard.

By threatening to use its veto as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, Russia this year prevented the U.N. from adopting a Western-backed independence plan drafted by envoy Martti Ahtisaari after a year of talks.

But U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said this week the Ahtisaari plan remained "the appropriate way to proceed."

"I think from our perspective, the outcome for this is and should be clear to everyone," he said.

In return, Albanians are expected to commit to the Ahtisaari plan that calls for a powerful EU overseer and offers the Serb minority extensive autonomy and protection of their monuments.

Serbia is promising counter-measures that could include an economic embargo on Kosovo, border closures and a diplomatic slap in the face of states that recognise the province as the last country to emerge from the former Yugoslavia.

As a precaution against possible unrest in Kosovo, NATO plans to activate around 1,600 more combat troops next week from Britain and Italy, Germany's Financial Times Deutschland (FTD) newspaper said in a preview of an article appearing on Friday.

It did not identify the source of the information.

NATO is concerned that clashes could erupt in the flashpoint town of Mitrovica, and that Serbs in the north could try to break away. It is also watching for any signs that Serbs in neighbouring Bosnia might secede. (Additional reporting by Shaban Buza and Adrian Croft in London and Lou Charbonneau in Berlin; Editing by Catherine Evans)

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