BELGRADE, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) -- United Nations special envoy Martti Ahtisaari on Friday handed to Serbian President Boris Tadichis draft proposal on the future of Kosovo, following one year of intensive negotiations with relevant parties.

    The document "is a draft and not a final proposal," Ahtisaari told a press conference here, adding that further consultations between Serbian and Kosovo Albanian negotiators could be held later this month.

    "I'm willing to integrate compromise solutions that parties might reach, and I will then finalize my settlement proposal for submission to the UN Security Council," Ahtisaari said, specifying that he would invite the two sides to meet on Feb. 13.

    The former Finnish president, who mediated 15-round of talks in2006 seeking a compromise between Serbia and Kosovo's Albanian majority, met Tadic but not Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, who said he could not receive the envoy as a caretaker leader following the general elections on Jan. 21.

    Ahtisaari said that Tadic repeated Serbia's "well-known" stand on Kosovo. Serbian officials have repeatedly said they would never accept an independent Kosovo.

    Later on Friday, Ahtisaari will present his draft proposal in Kosovo's capital Pristina, where the ethnic Albanian leaders know they are to be offered something short of independence at first, coupled with more years of international supervision by a European Union mission.

    Ahtisaari's draft proposal is to be open to the public later on Friday, but a summary of his proposal obtained by Xinhua confirms that Ahtisaari will neither recommend independence by name, nor refer to Serbian sovereignty.

    It suggests that Kosovo will not return to Serbian rule and will obtain legal status that permits other countries to eventually recognize it as an independent state.

    Kosovo has been run by the UN mission since 1999 when NATO bombings forced the late Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw his forces, who was accused of killing 10,000 ethnic Albanians during a counter-insurgency war. The province of 2 million is cherished by Serbia for its cultural and religious heritages.

    President Tadic has told Serbs that Kosovo might already be lost. But Kostunica has said that Belgrade should sever ties with any country that recognizes the province as an independent state.