Serbia's president on visit to Kosovo

Kosovo: Serbia's president, Mr Boris Tadic, rejected the possibility of independence for Kosovo yesterday, on the first visit by a Serb head of state to the Albanian-dominated province since the end of bitter fighting there in 1999.

Mr Tadic visited some of the few remaining Serb enclaves in Kosovo and the charred shell of an Orthodox church attacked in riots last March, and handed out flags to gathered Serbs who heard him reaffirm Belgrade's commitment to running the region.

"This is Serbia!" Mr Tadic declared in the village of Silovo, home to some of the 80,000 Serbs who stayed as about 200,000 compatriots fled in fear of reprisals from Albanian extremists and despite the presence of NATO peacekeepers. "Kosovo is Serbia, not only by our laws but by international laws," Mr Tadic told Silovo's residents, who chanted "Serbia! Serbia!" in falling snow. "I promise that I will fight with all my powers for the right of Serbs and every citizen of Serbia to live in Kosovo."

Kosovo has been a UN protectorate since 1999, when NATO bombing drove out Serb forces that killed and expelled thousands of Albanian civilians while combating pro-independence guerrillas. Talks on Kosovo's final status are expected to start later this year, but Mr Tadic made clear that Belgrade would not relinquish a province that Serbs consider to be the historic cradle of their culture and religion. Kosovo's two million Albanians refuse to return to rule from Belgrade, which they associate with the regime of Mr Slobodan Milosevic.

A few hundred Albanians protested at Mr Tadic's arrival yesterday, but the president, who is seen as a pro-Western liberal in Serbia, insisted that he wanted Kosovo's communities to live together.