Kosovo border creeps south

By Matt Robinson

ZUPCE, Kosovo (Reuters) - The United Nations persuaded Serbs on Sunday to remove two checkpoints they had set up 20 km (12 miles) inside the border of newly independent Kosovo.

For 24 hours, a blue portacabin topped with floodlights stood at the side of the road running north to the Kosovo-Serbia border, manned by Kosovo Serb police officers checking vehicles.

The regional U.N. police chief negotiated with the local Serb authorities to have the cabin removed with the help of Danish NATO peacekeepers, watched by a crowd of agitated Serbs.

One week after its Albanian majority declared independence from Serbia, there is a sense Kosovo is destined for partition, with the Serb-dominated north splitting away.

If partition came, the frontier between the two sides would run where the portacabin was placed in Zupce.

"It's their imaginary red line," one Western official at the scene commented. "They're playing games with us, saying this is where the border post should be."

Another blue box was placed on the eastern edge of the Serb-dominated strip of northern Kosovo and later removed.

Serbia has not said explicitly it wants to partition Kosovo, but in rejecting the province's secession it has promised to strengthen its grip on Serb areas, notably the north where just under half of the 120,000 Serbs live with their backs to Serbia.