Washington and the vast majority of European Union states are likely to recognise a declaration of independence by Kosovo, and are confident that its leaders will wait until around late January to enable NATO and the European Union to prepare for it.
"It is increasingly likely that the Kosovars will act in consultation and in coordination with us." a senior State Department official told reporters.
"We will have a lot of white-knuckle days ahead of us, I am more confident than I was six months ago that we will all be together in the end," the official said.
The agreement that the existing U.N. Security Council resolution can justify NATO's presence in Kosovo even after independence is crucial, as several nations such as Germany had harboured doubts over whether it could continue to apply.
U.N. Security Council veto-holder Russia has not made clear if it will challenge the validity of Resolution 1244, originally intended for Kosovo in its current state as a Serb province.
Diplomats believe an explicit pledge by alliance nations that they will keep KFOR at full strength and not impose limits -- such as banning their troops from riot control -- will be a serious deterrent in the tense weeks ahead.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband told reporters it was crucial that European nations, whose internal divisions failed to stop the outbreak of the Balkan wars of the 1990s, showed unity in the months ahead.
"This is in Europe's backyard and European nations need to show real leadership ... We know from the mid-1990s the cost of Europe wringing its hands and failing to provide leadership."
NATO commanders are confident KFOR is well resourced to deal with trouble and diplomats play down the prospects of violence.
But the West has been irked by aggressive rhetoric from Belgrade, and on Thursday the EU's mediator on Kosovo demanded that Serbia disown a comment made by an adviser to Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica that "war is a legal tool".
Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations since a 1999 NATO bombing campaign to halt ethnic cleansing by Serb forces of the 90 percent ethnic Albanian province, which Belgrade insists must remain under its sovereignty.
