BELGRADE (Reuters) -- Serbia disregarded European Union calls for less provocative Serb rhetoric on Kosovo at the weekend and warned that the United States was leading the West down a path of force to make the province independent.

As foreign ministers meeting in Portugal admitted differences on Kosovo among the EU's 27 member states, Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica attacked Washington's ""threat"" of illegal recognition of the breakaway territory as an independent state.
Serbia, backed by Russia, is on a collision course with the West over Kosovo and hopes to persuade hesitant EU member states to resist big power pressure for recognition of independence as the only viable solution to deadlocked talks over its future.
In a statement responding to U.S. promises that Kosovo would get independence whether on not the UN approves, Kostunica said Serbia ""is faced with a direct threat by the United States that it will recognize the independence of Kosovo ... in an illegal way.""
""Using the policy of force, the U.S. threatens openly that it will not respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Serbia, which is an internationally recognized state and a UN member,"" he said in an appeal to the UN Security Council.
Serbia's ally Russia has blocked a UN plan to give Kosovo independence under EU supervision. The province's 90 percent ethnic Albanian majority, who have been under UN rule for the past eight years, say they are ready to declare independence in December.
Kostunica ignored a senior EU official's demand for clarification of an aide's remarks that Serb troops would have the right to enter an ""illegal"" Kosovo state.
-----------Vital for security
EU foreign ministers on Saturday vowed to maintain a united front on the fate of Kosovo once talks end on December 10.
Portuguese Foreign Minister Luis Amado, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency and must seek consensus in coming months, said avoiding a split was vital for security in the Balkans and ""key to the credibility of Europe's foreign policy.""
""I cannot conceive that we could have ... a situation where there is a strong position of Russia, a strong position of the United States, and where Europe simply does not exist,"" he said.
Britain and France are among EU states ready to recognize Kosovo's independence. Germany's position is less clear. Spain, Hungary, Greece, Slovakia, Cyprus and Romania are reluctant and other governments are showing signs of ambivalence.
A split over Kosovo would shatter the EU's efforts to be a credible foreign policy player more than a decade after it failed to halt the Balkan wars of the 1990s