Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku has said he expects the disputed province to declare its independence from Serbia by the end of May.

In an interview with the New York Times published on Monday, Ceku said there was strong international support for the move even though Kosovo's final status has yet to be agreed by the UN Security Council.

"With the G-8 meeting due to take place in June, I don't think Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany will want G-8 countries to attend the summit without resolving Kosovo's status," he told the paper.

Kosovo's future status is expected to be confirmed in the coming weeks as the UN Security Council begins a debate on UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari's plan to grant increasingly impatient ethnic Albanians their wish for statehood.

The Ahtisaari proposals, drafted after he led a year of mostly fruitless talks between Belgrade and Pristina, would grant Kosovo internationally supervised independence, including its own constitution, flag and anthem.

The proposals have been supported by the US, the European Union, and leaders of ethnic Albanians, who comprise around 90 percent of Kosovo's two million inhabitants.

However, Serbia, which sees the province as its historic heartland and has won support from Russia, has rejected Ahtisaari's proposals as a violation of its territorial integrity.

Since mid-1999, the ethnic Albanian dominated province in southern Serbia has been under UN administration, after NATO bombing helped to drive out Serbian forces who were waging a brutal attack against Albanians.

SN/SF/MR