Bogdanovic told Tanjug news agency on Sunday that Serbia did not want to breach UN Security Council Resolution 1244 in any way or put in danger Serbs living south of the river Ibar in Kosovo.

The river Ibar, which divides the town of Kosovska Mitrovica into an ethnic-Serb-majority north and an ethnic-Albanian-majority south, is considered to be the line symbolically separating the north of Kosovo, populated mostly by Serbs, from the rest of the country, populated mostly by ethnic Albanians.

Bogdanovic said that reports that two (of the four) northern Kosovo municipalities populated by Serbs would organise local elections were not good because it caused divisions among local Serbs.

Calling for giving up plans to hold local elections in the north of Kosovo, Bogdanovic said that no one had the right to violate Resolution 1244.

Based on that resolution, Serbia expects negotiations to start soon on the status of Kosovo, Bogdanovic said, adding that if the Serbian side shows a tendency to ignore the resolution, it will not be able to expect international representatives and Kosovo Albanians in the future to negotiate with it on Kosovo's status on the basis of that resolution.

Bogdanovic said that there would be no giving up on holding local elections at a later date, adding that after the current election cycle, talks would be held with UNMIK again to ask it to organise local elections in Kosovo.

In mid-March, Serbian authorities called for May 6 parliamentary and regional elections as well as local elections, to include Kosovo.

The day after the elections were called, the European Parliament's rapporteur on Serbia, Jelko Kacin, and Britain's Minister for Europe, David Lidington, warned Serbia in separate statements that organising Serbian local elections in Kosovo would be contrary to the EU's policy and international law.

The Kosovo parliament then passed a resolution banning the holding of Serbian parliamentary and local elections in Kosovo's territory.