A senior U.S. official said here on Tuesday that the United States expects a quick international action to realize the independence of Kosovo, a province of Serbia.

Addressing a U.S. Congress panel, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns said "we must now act quickly in the next weeks and months to finish the job by helping to lead Kosovo to independence."

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 United Nations Security Council is to debate in the coming weeks an independence proposal for the southern Serbian province, unveiled by UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari late last month.

The United States "fully supports" Ahtisaari's plan, Burns told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Monday, saying "we believe that supervised independence for Kosovo is now the only way forward."

Burns, the No. 3 official at the U.S. State Department, also said "we don't want this very painful and difficult decision about the independence of Kosovo to in effect scuttle the possibility of good relations between our two countries."

Serbia is adamantly opposed to the independence of Kosovo, warning any unilateral recognition of Kosovo's independence would be "brutal violation of UN norms."

Source: Xinhua