TV21's countdown ends on Monday, when the report will be delivered. The station's chief, Eugen Saracini, says it has become a countdown to nothing.

The Russian, U.S. and European mediators acknowledge their report on four months of talks with representatives of Serbia and Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority will not resolve differences over the province's status or propose a way forward.

In the absence of a deal, Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders say they will declare independence. This will set up a showdown with Serbia and Russia, Belgrade's big power backer, which oppose the southern province breaking away.

But weeks or months could pass before the independence declaration, even though it has broad Western backing.

"Kosovo will not declare independence the day after Dec 10," Hajredin Kuci, an ally of Kosovo prime minister-apparent Hashim Thaci, told Reuters. "But we will do it very soon after, in coordination with our allies."

Even a date to make the declaration may not be set before mid-January because talks on a coalition government are barely under way following an election in Kosovo last month.

The United States and almost all 27 EU member states regard Kosovo's independence as the best option for stability in the Balkans, which suffered years of conflict in the 1990s after the collapse of Yugoslavia.

But they want a handover from U.N. to EU supervision of Kosovo and hope to avoid any sudden moves that might undermine EU unity.

"I know the people of Kosovo have enough maturity to let those international mechanisms work. Let them draw their conclusions and then go from there to the following steps," Kosovo's U.N. administrator, Joachim Ruecker, said on Wednesday.

"It is very, very important to get the next steps right."

U.N. TO DISCUSS REPORT

The U.N. Security Council will discuss the report on Dec 19. Russia will seek more talks, which the West believes pointless.

Kosovo's 2 million Albanians, around 90 percent of the population, vastly outnumber the about 100,000 Serbs who live mainly in scattered enclaves protected by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

Serbia lost control of Kosovo -- which it reveres as its religious heartland -- in 1999, when NATO carried out bombing raids for 11 weeks to halt killing and ethnic cleansing of Albanians by Serb forces fighting separatist guerrillas.

The issue lay dormant until 2004, when Albanian riots caught 16,000 NATO troops off guard.

By threatening to use its veto as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, Russia this year prevented the U.N. adopting a Western-backed independence plan drafted by envoy Martti Ahtisaari after a year of talks.

But U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said this week the Ahtisaari plan remained "the appropriate way to proceed."

"I think from our perspective, the outcome for this is and should be clear to everyone," he said.

In return, Albanians are expected to commit to the Ahtisaari plan that calls for a powerful EU overseer and offers the Serb minority extensive autonomy and protection of their monuments.

Serbia is promising counter-measures that could include an economic embargo on Kosovo, border closures and a diplomatic slap in the face of states that recognize the province as the last country to emerge from the former Yugoslavia.

NATO is concerned clashes could erupt in the flashpoint town of Mitrovica and Serbs in the north could try to break away. It is also watching for any signs that Serbs in neighboring Bosnia could secede.

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