BELGRADE. Yugoslavia. Apr 3: Yugoslav President Slobodan-. Milosevic blasted the West for interfering in Kosovo and Thursday urged a referendum on whether foreigners can mediate talks on the future the troubled province, reports AP.

Milosevic issued an open letter to top Serbian officials on the proposed vote, attacking foreign powers for their "extremely negative and aggressive" demands to mediate talks with Kosovo's increasingly restive ethnic Albanian majority.

Ethnic Albanians comprise 90 per cent of the population in Kosovo and are pushing for independence from Serbia, the dominant of two republics in the Yugoslav federation.

Most Serbs reject independence for Kosovo, considered the cradle of their religion and state. Any referendum is certain to go in Milosevic's favour not only does he control powerful state media, a great majority of Serbs consider Kosovo their "holy land."

Strengthened by a rejection

of foreign mediafioh? Milosevic is likely to try to:dictateiterms to the Albanians far short of the independence they seek.

The United States and its European allies have warned Milosevic that he risks stiffer economic sanctions by rebuffing efforts to resolve the crisis in Kosovo. The UN Security Council has already imposed an arms embargo.

Milosevic's letter did not single out the United States or any other country, but described the foreign pressure as "coming from those who want to dictate to the rest of the world how it should live."

"Even more: How it should think," he said.

Shortly after Milosevic's letter was published, the state-run Tanjug news agency reported that both Serbian President Milan Milutinovic and the Serbian government backed the referendum idea, although no date was mentioned.

"Most of them lived in the houses that were burned and destroyed." said Zenun Celjaj, an activist.