Below is an article written by Judy Dempsey and published by the International Herald Tribune:

PRISTINA, Kosovo: Prime Minister Agim Ceku expects Kosovo to declare its independence by the end of next month [May 2007], despite threats by Russia to block a United Nations Security Council resolution that would sanction the establishment of new country in Europe.

Ceku, 47, said enough countries, particularly the United States, had invested time, money and political energy into ending one of the last chapters of the Balkans wars of the 1990s to warrant reintegrating Kosovo, a southern province of Serbia, with Europe. 

"I expect Kosovo to be able to declare its independence by the end of May," Ceka said in an interview in his office in Pristina, the bustling capital of this province of 1.9 million people, of whom a third are aged between 15 and 25 years.

The Security Council resolution would replace a 1999 resolution that put Kosovo under a UN protectorate. 

"There is a very strong U.S. commitment to do this," said Ceku, a moderate politician who took office more than a year ago. "It wants to finish the job. Britain's Tony Blair is on board, too."

He added: "With the G-8 meeting due to take place in June, I don't think Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany will want G-8 countries to attend the summit without resolving Kosovo's status." 

Daniel Fried, U.S. assistant secretary of state for European affairs, appeared to agree that independence was just a matter of weeks.

Speaking in Brussels at a conference organized by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, Fried said Saturday [28 April 2007] that the United States would begin drafting a new UN Security Council resolution "in spite of Russia's objections." 

The resolution, which would legally pave the way for changing Kosovo's status from an international protectorate under the UN to becoming an independent state, "would be adopted by the end of spring," Fried said.

Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has refused to say whether he will veto the Security Council resolution. But last week, Vladimir Titov, the deputy foreign minister, said Russia would not support the plan drawn up by Martti Ahtisaari, the UN's special envoy to Kosovo. The plan has been opposed by the Serbian leadership but overwhelmingly accepted by the Kosovar leadership. 

Moscow has repeatedly called for more negotiations, which the United States and other countries have rejected.

Ceku, a former commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army, which fought against the Serbian Army during the late 1990s, said enough time had been spent discussing the Ahtisaari plan. 

"It was time to move on," he added.

The Ahtisaari plan sets out a detailed set of political, social, economic and human rights measures that Kosovo needs to carry out as part of a European Union-"supervised" independence. A priority is protecting Kosovo Serbs, who form 8 percent of the population. 

"Russia is using Kosovo to prove it is a player," Ceka said.

Asked whether Russia was trying to force the hand of some countries to recognize Kosovo unilaterally, which would surely create divisions inside the European Union and between Europe and the United States, Ceka said such moves "would be bad for us." 

Still, Ceka said he expected independence even if it proved impossible to reach agreement on the resolution.

"Our friends who are realistic and countries that have invested soldiers, money and eight years of engagement here, and who are planning to be present, want an end to this unresolved status," he said. 

"Why should those countries which have not invested time, money and people here block a UN resolution? Saying no to the Ahtisaari proposal would be a big decision."

Kosovo has been under an international protectorate since 1999, after Blair, the British prime minister, and President Bill Clinton persuaded NATO to bomb Serbia to stop Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav president, from forcibly expelling the ethnic Albanian majority from Kosovo, then under Serbian control. The bombing campaign ended the last of the four Balkan wars that ravaged this part of Europe during the 1990s. 

Serbia's continuing opposition to the Ahtisaari plan is another source of frustration for Ceku, who was trained by the Yugoslav Army and fought with Croatia in its war for independence against Serbia and who is married to a Croat.

Vojislav Kostunica, the prime minister of Serbia and a nationalist, and Boris Tadic, the Serbian president and a moderate, have rejected independence for Kosovo, for historical and cultural reasons.

"There are Serbian leaders, radicals and politicians who are using Kosovo as a propaganda hit for them," Ceka said. "On the other side, you have moderate, young people who are tired of all these old stories about Kosovo. They want to look forward and join Europe. Serbia is being blocked by the old past." 

Ceka said he was convinced that many Serbs wanted the UN Security Council to take the burden from them and to discharge the responsibility over Kosovo.

"The biggest service Kostunica could do for the Kosovo Serbs is to let them go," he said. "As soon as he understands it, then he will be a great patriot." 

Over the past eight years, Kosovo has received more than €2 billion, close to $3 billion, in aid, mostly for reconstruction.

NATO still has 16,000 troops in the province, not only to maintain security but also to protect the Serbian minority. Under the UN protectorate, little was done to combat corruption, which Ceka acknowledged was rampant.