BELGRADE, Feb. 7 (Xinhua) -- A short delay of the final round of UN-mediated negotiations on the future status of Serbia's pro-independent province of Kosovo would be acceptable for the European Union, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said in the Kosovo's capital Pristina on Wednesday.

    "Anything that is reasonable as far as time, can be acceptable .... Maybe a week or something like that," Solana was quoted as saying by the national Tanjug news agency.

    Belgrade demanded the talks with Pristina, which had been set for next Tuesday in Vienna, to be moved back for about 10 days, to allow the Balkan country to convene a new parliament elected on Jan. 21.

    The talks are the last-ditch effort for the two sides to reach compromise after a one-year negotiating process led by UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari, who last Friday unveiled a draft status proposal which opens the way for Kosovo's eventual independence.

    Solana said Serbia should use the required time to convene parliament and renew the mandate of its Kosovo negotiating team. The outgoing Serbian government has said that without a renewed mandate, no officials could legitimately represent Serbia in the Vienna talks.

    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. Serbia offers "substantial autonomy" to the ethnic Albanian majority, who accept only outright independence.

    Britain's Minister of State for Europe Geoff Hoon said in Belgrade on Wednesday that a possible decision on postponing the Vienna talks depends on Ahtisaari, who had been flexible in the past, notably by delaying his draft proposal which was previously to be released by the end of last year.

    "It is up to Ahtisaari to decide about the date of the talks," said Hoon at a new conference together with Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic.

    Later on Wednesday, Solana will travel to Belgrade to join EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany, which currently holds the EU presidency, along with Portugal's Manuel Lobo Antunes, whose country takes over the EU during the second half of this year.