RAMBOUILLET, France Kosovo peace talks continued Saturday beyond a noon deadline with the warring sides unable to agree on a peacekeeping force for the embattled province. Sources close to the talks said the Serb delegation had made it clear Serbia would not accept a NATO-led peacekeeping force on its soil. The talks were understood to be focussing on whether a peace implementation force under the control of the United Nations or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) would be acceptable.

The main remark by the Serb delegation is that they don't want an implementation force to be under NATO auspices, a U.S. source said. The discussions are on whether it should be a UN or OSCE force, he added. OSCE chairman Knut Vollebaek arrived at the talks at the Rambouillet Chateau, outside Paris, at 12:30 p.m. (11:30 GMT) Saturday. U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and her European counterparts from the six-nation Contact Group on the former Yugoslavia were in intensive negotiations with Serb and ethnic Albanian negotiators, State Department spokesman James Rubin said.

Russia was represented by First Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Avdeyev. The clock has been stopped, Rubin said. He added: No consideration has been given by the U.S. to anything but a NATO force but it could be endorsed by the United Nations. If an agreement is struck, the OSCE will need to be involved in monitoring the process. French Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Anne Gazeau-Secret said progress was difficult, but a last-minute deal was still possible.

Ministers of the Contact Group Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and the United States continued negotiations after the expiry of the noon (11:00 GMT) deadline Saturday which the international community had imposed for the warring sides to reach an accord or face punitive NATO strikes. (AFP)