(Adds U.N. Secretary-General, paragraphs 16-17)

By Douglas Hamilton

BELGRADE, June 11 (Reuters) - Serbs will never forgive the United States if it helps ensure Kosovo's Albanians win independence for the Serbian province, Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said on Monday.

In a bitter response to President George W. Bush's promise to Albanians that Kosovo would soon be independent, Kostunica said Serbia was "justifiably disgusted" by U.S. policy, the official Serbian news agency Tanjug reported.

The row over Kosovo's future deepened as the province marked the eve of the 8th anniversary of the June 12 deployment of 60,000 NATO troops who entered the territory from Macedonia as Serb forces withdrew to the north.

It has turned into a high-stakes diplomatic standoff between Russia, which backs Serbia in opposition to independence, and the West, which believes it is the only viable solution to future stability in the southern Balkans.

"The U.S. has a right to support certain states and peoples in accordance with its interests, but not by making them a present of something which doesn't belong to it," the Serb premier said.

"The U.S. bombing of Serbia was a big enough mistake for the last century and this one as well," added Kostunica, who has suggested that Serbia would curtail diplomatic ties with any state that recognises independence.

"Supporting one-sided independence for Kosovo would be a fresh mistake, a further act of unjustified violence, which would not be forgotten by the Serbian people," he said.

EIGHT-YEAR WAIT

The United States led NATO military intervention in the Kosovo crisis in 1999, bombing Serbia for 11 weeks until the late autocrat Slobodan Milosevic gave in and withdrew his army and paramilitary police from the province.

Serbia's counter-insurgency war against ethnic Albanian separatist guerrillas killed some 10,000 Albanian civilians and temporarily drove nearly a million from the country.

Kosovo has been under U.N. administration and NATO protection since June 1999, awaiting a decision on its future.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy failed last week to broker a compromise deal with Russia over Kosovo, suggesting a six-month delay to any U.N. resolution in exchange for Russian acceptance of independence.

France's foreign ministry said on Monday senior officials from France, the United States, Britain, Germany and Italy would meet in Paris on Tuesday to discuss next steps on Kosovo.

Visiting Albania on Sunday, Bush said the United States and European Union were convinced that independence for Kosovo was the only viable solution, as demanded by the province's 90 percent ethnic Albanian majority.

Bush said Washington would make further diplomatic efforts to convince Russia, which could veto a U.N. resolution.

But Bush also said that "at some point in time, sooner rather than later, you have to say enough is enough, Kosovo is independent". The West could bring the issue to a Security Council vote this month.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday urged the Council to endorse a plan drafted by U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari for an independent Kosovo supervised by the European Union.

"I hope at this time we should not waste too much time in making a decision," said Ban. "But I hope and I expect that the consultations among the parties concerned will continue." (Additional reporting by Crispian Balmer in Paris and Patrick Worsnip in New York)

AlertNet news is provided by