BRUSSELS: With the chances of Serbia and the Kosovo Albanians agreeing on the future of the breakaway Serbian province by Dec 10 close to zero, Western negotiators are determined above all to show they left “no stone unturned”.

Barring an improbable accord by that deadline, the aim is to demonstrate that no deal was possible, and prepare the political and legal ground for overriding Russian and Serbian objections to Kosovo’s independence, Western diplomats say.

“We have explored almost every humanly known option for squaring the circle of the Kosovo status issue,” chief European mediator Wolfgang Ischinger of Germany said this week.

“Regardless of how exactly this process will end ... it is clear that no one will be able to say this was not a meaningful and intense and working negotiating process,” he said, adding that yet more talks could not produce a better result.

Those comments seemed designed to rebut in advance expected demands by Belgrade and Moscow for further negotiations when U.S., Russian and European mediators report the outcome to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in 18 days’ time.

The two sides have agreed to intensify talks next week with a two-day session in the Austrian resort of Baden, but neither shows any sign of budging from opening positions.

The Kosovo Albanians will settle for nothing less than internationally supervised independence. The Serbs offer nothing more than broad autonomy under Serbian sovereignty.

TARGET AUDIENCE: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has warned against artificial time limits and made clear Moscow will use its U.N.

Security Council veto, as it did in July, to block any solution that is not accepted by Belgrade.

Deadlock is almost certain to lead to a declaration of independence by the Kosovo Albanians in consultation with the United States and the European Union, recognition by Washington and all but a couple of EU nations, and the deployment of European police and administrators at the U.N. chief’s request.

Hence a key target audience in the endgame of the talks is public opinion in the 27 European states which will have to decide within weeks on recognition and sending in European personnel without a Security Council resolution.

Ischinger suggested this week breaking the impasse through a framework for contractual relations between Belgrade and Pristina without prejudice to Kosovo’s final status.

The Serbs said they rejected this so-called “status neutral” proposal, modelled on a 1972 agreement on ties between East and West Germany, which sidestepped the question of Germany’s eventual unification.

Some diplomats said getting Belgrade and Moscow to reject such an approach might have been the point of the exercise.

“Ischinger is building a case to be able to say ‘We tried everything, we went the extra mile, we left no stone unturned’,” one Western diplomat said.

The fact that it was a German EU negotiator offering a German model was no accident. Berlin has the largest contingent of NATO peacekeepers in Kosovo and traditionally insists on a U.N. mandate for its operations.

FULL SWING: While the United States has said it would recognise a Kosovo declaration of independence, most EU countries have refrained from saying what they would do, as requested by Ischinger to avoid any impression that the talks are just a facade.

Earlier this year, five EU states with minority or regional issues at home -- Slovakia, Romania, Cyprus, Greece and Spain -- voiced reservations at a foreign ministers’ meeting about recognising Kosovo’s independence without a U.N. resolution.

But diplomats in Brussels say only two -- Cyprus and Greece -- now seem likely to resist, and “permissive” wording may enable the EU to remain united while the other 25 go ahead.

Meanwhile, preparations for the EU to take over key responsibilities from the United Nations are in full swing.—Reuters