By Xinhua
Washington : Kosovo has given assurance to the US that it did not have any plans to unilaterally declare independence from Serbia.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met here with members of the Kosovo Unity Team Monday, having warned Kosovo not to declare independence unilaterally, the State Department said.
Rice planned to "underline the fact that nobody gains by trying to short-circuit the diplomatic process that is under way," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters as the talks began.
Skender Hyseni, a spokesman for the Kosovo delegation, said: "Today the (Kosovo) unity team once again reassured the US that we remain close partners of both America and the European Union in bringing the independence process to a close," Hyseni said.
The meeting between Rice and officials from the breakaway province comes after the US and European allies shelved a UN bid to secure independence for the Serbian province.
The US and five EU member states, faced with the threat of a veto by Russia, have decided to give up their attempts to resolve the status of Kosovo in the UN Security Council and to transfer the process to the so-called Contact Group composed of the US, Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Russia.
Kosovo has been run by the United Nations since mid-1999, when NATO airstrikes halted a Serbian crackdown on independence-seeking ethnic Albanians and forced Belgrade to relinquish control.
The US and its European allies have been pressing Russia to accept a UN plan granting independence to Serbia's breakaway province of Kosovo.