Meanwhile, Britain, France, Germany and Italy urged fellow European Union states in a letter to accept that negotiations on Kosovo's future had been exhausted and the time had come to settle its status -- without U.N. backing, if necessary.
'SLIPPERY SLOPE'
In a separate move that drew immediate fire from Russia, NATO countries agreed that their 16,000 KFOR peacekeepers could stay in Kosovo on the basis of their existing U.N. mandate, even after independence.
"KFOR shall remain in Kosovo on the basis of U.N. Security Council resolution 1244, unless the Security Council decides otherwise," NATO ministers said in a communique.
Washington and most EU states are likely to recognize a declaration of independence by Kosovo and are confident its leaders will wait until around late January to enable NATO and the European Union to prepare for it.
"There is still a lot of work to do to make sure we have full commitment to the principles embodied in the Ahtisaari plan," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said of a U.N. blueprint for independence by special envoy Martti Ahtisaari, which has security provisions for Kosovo's Serbs.
The agreement that Security Council resolution 1244 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.
Russia has not made clear whether it will challenge such an application of the resolution. But Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov slammed it as potentially undermining basic standards of international law.
"Anybody who goes in contravention to those is on a very slippery downward slope and it certainly won't help the rest of us in Europe," he said after brief talks with NATO counterparts, referring to concerns it could encourage other separatist moves.
At the United Nations, Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said the negotiations, even though unsuccessful, had been a "worthwhile exercise" producing "serious results," and Moscow would urge the Security Council that they should carry on.
"When the time comes to consider the troika report in the Security Council, Russia will be arguing in favour of continuing the negotiation," Churkin said. Western countries are virtually certain to reject that proposal.
Churkin said Serbia had made concessions but he admitted that Belgrade had not been willing to surrender sovereignty -- the essence of the Kosovo Albanian demands.
