BELGRADE --  Vojislav Koštunica says that signing an agreement on closer EU ties would also sign Kosovo's independence.

"The agreement and an EU mission are canceling each other," he commented on the 27-nation bloc's plans to send its mission to the southern Serbian province, at the same time signing the crucial Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) with Serbia, initialed last November.

Koštunica's Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) is in coalition with the largest party of the so-called Democratic Bloc, President Boris Tadić's Democrats (DS), who favor early signing of the association deal.

The prime minister was a guest in a state broadcaster RTS program last evening, when he declined to make predictions as to whether the EU's foreign ministers will Monday offer Belgrade the signing of the SAA.

However, he added that the agreement "should not be signed if the Union decides to also send a mission to Kosovo."

"If an EU mission were to arrive after the agreement [has been signed], then the parliament could not ratify this agreement, while the government would have to announce it null and void," Koštunica said.

He repeated that plans to replace UNMIK, the United Nation's civilian administration in Kosovo since 1999, with that of the EU, is tantamount to gradual implementation of the Ahtisaari plan, which envisaged the province's supervised independence, and was rejected at the UN last spring.

Koštunica also said he saw "nothing strange" in an offer his party made to the Democrats, ahead of the Feb. 3 presidential elections showdown, where Tadić is facing Tomislav Nikolić of the Serb Radical Party (SRS).

In return for its endorsement, the DSS wanted Tadić to pledge that he will annul the SAA in case the EU goes ahead with its planned mission. The president rejected this as "blackmail."

"We are nearing the crucial moment when Kosovo's independence will be declared. The time is running out and we thought it was high time to tell this to our coalition partners," Koštunica was quoted by Beta news agency.

The prime minister also said that the final result of the presidential ballot in a week's time will "not bring some historic change," and added that a new president would not destabilize the country, since the constitution gives the government the most power, and control over internal and foreign policies.

• A Permanent Economic Emergency