Members of Kosovo’s parliament requested the legislature on April 17 to issue a formal statement against plans by Belgrade to include the breakaway province, which has declared itself independent, in Serbian elections due on May 11.

Kosovo news website KosovaLive said that the MPs wanted a formal request to be made to UNMIK, the UN Mission in Kosovo, to prevent Serbia attempting to organise voting for its elections in Kosovo.

The same day, the Serbian government took an equally firm stance, with Serbian trade minister Predrag Bubalo telling a news conference after a cabinet meeting that ministers were unanimous that the parliamentary and local elections would include voting in Kosovo.

From Belgrade, Serbian news agency Beta reported Serbian deputy prime minister Bozidar Djelic as saying that the government had adopted a draft agreement with UNMIK, specifying relations and areas of co-operation with the civil administration in key bodies such as the police, health care, judiciary and customs.

Djelic said that the Serbian government insisted on respect for UN Security Council Resolution 1244 in the work of UNMIK, and that it would not accept any of UNMIK's officials referring to UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari's plan, which Serbia rejects.

On April 18, Serbia announced that its ministry for Kosovo had sent the UN Security Council its official response to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's regular quarterly report on UNMIK, which is due to be discussed by the Security Council on April 21.

The Serbian response criticises UNMIK and what Serbia describes as UNMIK’s failure to react to Kosovo’s February 17 unilateral declaration of independence.

“We draw attention to the fact that the report only mentions the unilateral declaration of independence, and only confirms ‘the new reality on the ground.’ The report does not mention Serbia’s demands or her arguments that this ‘new reality’ is the product of a violation of Resolution 1244,” Serbia's Kosovo ministry said.

Serbia demanded the renewal of UNMIK’s initial mandate in line with Resolution 1244, and said that Serbia considered it completely unacceptable for UNMIK to act on the basis of respecting the circumstances brought about by the unilateral independence declaration.

German news agency dpa reported on April 16 that UNMIK, backed by the big-powers Contact Group (the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy and Russia), had announced that it opposed Serbia's plan to hold local elections in the province.

UN and Contact Group officials had held a meeting on the election issue and “there is a unified stand that Serbia’s local elections (in Kosovo) are unacceptable,” spokesperson Aleksander Ivanko told a news conference in Pristina.