(Updates with fresh Lavrov quotes, recasts)

By Oleg Shchedrov

MOSCOW, Dec 21 (Reuters) - Russia's foreign minister said in a television interview on Friday it was "not impossible" that the European Union could take over the U.N.'s role in the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo, provided Belgrade agreed.

But in a newspaper interview published earlier in the day, Sergei Lavrov made clear Russia would use every instrument it had at the United Nations to block Western attempts to proclaim Kosovo's independence over Serbia's objections.

The European Union, which believes that diplomatic means to bridge differences between Kosovo leaders and Belgrade have been exhausted, is preparing to take over policing and judicial duties in Kosovo from the United Nations.

"If the European Union wants to replace the United Nations in Kosovo, this is not an impossible option," Lavrov told Vesti-24 television.

"Firstly, an appropriate decision by the U.N. Security Council should be adopted. The second condition is that Belgrade agrees. Consent from the country where a peacekeeping operation is being conducted is a necessary condition."

Serbia has said an EU mission without the blessing of the Security Council would be unlawful.

Some Serbian hardliners also oppose such a mission in principle, because it would mean Kosovo is moving towards "supervised independence", as envisaged by a Western-backed plan that Moscow blocked at the U.N. earlier this year.

Russia was against NATO's military operation against Serbia in 1999, launched to force Belgrade to withdraw forces from Kosovo after atrocities against the province's majority ethnic Albanians.

VETO

Moscow has taken part in the U.N. KFOR peacekeeping force in Kosovo. But it has consistently blocked Western attempts in the U.N. Security Council to grant independence to Kosovo.

Russia says it will back any solution approved by both Pristina and Belgrade, but warned that letting Kosovo declare independence unilaterally could set a dangerous precedent. It has accused the West of undermining a dialogue between the two by encouraging Kosovo's demands for full independence.

In an interview with Vremya Novostei daily, Lavrov said Western plans to replace KFOR with an EU police force without Belgrade's agreement could lead to the demise of the United Nations, created to guarantee international stability.

"In fact, this is the first attempt to say that the West is no longer interested in the United Nations, that they will now solve complicated international problems outside the United Nations," he said.

Lavrov said Russia would block any Western attempts to win a U.N. blessing for Kosovo's self-proclaimed independence.

"If a decision approving a unilateral declaration of Kosovo's independence is put forward (in the U.N.), there will certainly be a veto," he told Vremya Novostei.

He made clear Russia would take legal steps in the United Nations if the West recognised Kosovo's independence.

"The U.N. Secretary-General, the U.N. mission in Kosovo will then be obliged to create conditions for reaching a political settlement," he said in the newspaper interview.

"They will simply be obliged to proclaim illegal any decision on unilateral independence by Kosovo Albanians." (Editing by Andrew Roche)

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