MOSCOW, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) -- The first meeting of Kosovo's troika will take place in Belgrade on Friday, the Russian representative to the Contact Group on Kosovo said on Wednesday.

    "This will be the troika's first visit to Serbia. Representatives of Russia, the United States and the European Union will hold talks in Pristina on Aug. 11-12," Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency as saying.

    Botsan-Kharchenko will on Thursday take part in the Contact Group's session in London that "will focus on the upcoming talks between Belgrade and Pristina on Kosovo's status," the report said.

    "We hope for substantial talks on measures to contribute to and organize this process, and ways to reach a decision, which may only be taken at the UN Security Council," the diplomat said.

    According to Serbian media reports, the EU will be represented by German diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger, and the United States by Ambassador Frank G. Wisner.

    Kosovo, the southern Serbian province, has been run by the UN and NATO since 1999. Ethnic Albanians, who make up 90 percent of the province's 2 million population, are demanding independence, while Serbia and the Serbs in Kosovo want it to remain within Serbia.

    In March, UN special envoy Martin Ahtisaari submitted a draft plan, which envisages internationally supervised independence for Kosovo, to the Security Council concerning the Kosovo issue.

    The plan, supported by the United States and many other western countries, is robustly opposed by Serbia and its ally Russia, which wields a powerful veto in the UN Security Council.

    "The Ahtisaari plan failed. The UN Security Council did not provide support for it. Thus, negotiators will not rest on this plan. The UN Security Council decided that the talks would be held by the troika," Botsan-Kharchenko said.

    Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said as the UN Security Council debates on the Western draft resolution concerning Kosovo had been suspended, the Contact Group partners accepted the Russian proposal of further negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina in order to find a compromise on the territory's status.

    "Russia believes that only this compromise may be approved by the U.N. Security Council," he said.

    The Contact Group Troika involving Russia, the European Union and the United States "will be efficient only if the Russian partners draw correct conclusions from the previous phase of the status negotiations and the complicated debates at the UN Security Council," Kamynin said.

    He said it is necessary to stop the support of only one side, take into consideration the proposals of Belgrade, promote the implementation of resolution 1244, and ensure national minority standards in the territory.

    Kamynin said neither an outcome of the negotiations predetermined by the intermediaries nor the promotion of the Marti Ahtisaari plan rejected by Serbs were compatible with the idea.

    Attempts to set an artificial deadline for the negotiations were not an option either.

    "Such practices must be ruled out at the current phase of the status negotiations," Kamynin said.