(Recasts with EULEX spokesman, NATO, background) By Mark John BRUSSELS, May 16 (Reuters) - The EU conceded on Friday that it was unlikely to be able to take over policing in Kosovo from the United Nations in June, confirming widespread expectations that Kosovo's security situation will be unclear for some time. Kosovo's ethnic Albanian government wanted the European Union to take over policing when it declared independence from Serbia in February -- infuriating not only Serbia but also its own minority Serb population. Kosovo's failure to secure Serbian or Russian recognition means the U.N. Security Council has not transferred the policing mandate from the existing U.N. force, UNMIK. With Russia blocking a formal handover, diplomats have been saying privately for weeks that a June 15 target for the 2,200-strong police mission to start operation was untenable. "We are aware that June 15 will be very difficult for us to be deployed and fully operational," EULEX spokesman Victor Reuter said on Friday, in response to an inquiry. "To say there will be a delay of one, two, three, four months at this stage is speculation. The mission has to start in the best possible conditions." A second EU official said: "We are still deploying, but the logistics required to get everything done by then [June 15] will be difficult now. It is unlikely." Tensions with the ethnic Serb minority in northern Kosovo erupted into riots last month in which one U.N. police officer was killed and dozens were injured. NATO peacekeepers say conditions have been relatively calm since. HANDOVER UNCLEAR The EU already has some 300 staff on the ground, mostly receiving training in the capital Pristina, and others are due to arrive in the coming weeks. But it is unclear when, or if, UNMIK will pull out. Russia questions the legality of the EU deployment in the absence of a U.N. mandate and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said only that he takes note of the EU's desire to help. UNMIK chief Joachim Ruecker was quoted last month as saying UNMIK would retain a presence in Kosovo as long as the existing U.N. Resolution 1244 remained valid. Apart from raising questions over how the EU force and UNMIK would work together, it means the EU cannot as expected take over the premises and vehicles now being used by UNMIK. The EU has long sought a security role in Kosovo as a chance to show it is able to take on responsibility in the Balkans after it failed to halt the wars there in the 1990s. EU officials stress no changes had been decided to the objectives of the EU mission, due to mentor and monitor local police across the territory and have anti-riot units. But diplomats say that if UNMIK stays on the ground after June, it could cement a de facto "soft partition" of Kosovo: "UNMIKland" in Serb areas in the north, "EULEXland" in the rest of the Albanian-majority state. Nations with troops in NATO's separate 17,000-strong KFOR security force are increasingly concerned that alliance soldiers might be called on to perform anti-riot duties and other tasks if the EU mission is stalled. "NATO's concern is to ensure that as we go forward there is a coherent and well-resourced international presence. KFOR does not want to go beyond the mandate it has," said NATO spokesman James Appathurai. (Reporting by Mark John; Editing by Kevin Liffey)
A man puts out a fire in a field of burning grass near the village of Murzinka, near Russia's Ural city of Nizhny Tagil May 12, 2008. The local population regularly ...
