Russia said on Sunday deadlines for a deal over the future of the Serbian province of Kosovo were not binding and could hinder attempts to find a settlement. Negotiations between Serbs and Kosovo`s ethnic Albanians, who want independence, failed to produce an agreement by a December 10 deadline. Kosovo is now expected to declare independence unilaterally, with Western backing. EU, U.S. and Russian mediators told U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a report on Friday that their mission had failed as neither side was willing to give way on the fundamental question of sovereignty over Kosovo. The U.N. Security Council will debate the report on December 19. Russia continues to back Serbia`s rejection of independence for Kosovo. "Artificial deadlines imposed by outsiders will not work, and we believe that in the case of Kosovo these deadlines are not binding," Russia`s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters during a visit to Cyprus. "We are convinced that a unilateral act, steps which do not comply with international law but rather undermine international law ... entail many risks and more time needs to be given for a mutually acceptable agreement," Lavrov said. Speaking through an interpreter translating from Russian to Greek, Lavrov compared deadlines to wishful thinking which could be counter-productive. He also referred to the ethnically-divided Cyprus, where estranged Greek and Turkish Cypriots were called in 2004 to work out a settlement deal within a prescribed U.N. deadline. The talks ended in failure. "It actually hinders the real work," Lavrov said after meeting Cypriot Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou Markoullis. Four or five of the 27 EU states, notably Cyprus and Greece, have misgivings about recognizing a unilateral declaration of independence in Kosovo. In Cyprus, a breakaway Turkish Cypriot state in the north of the island is recognized only by Turkey. "The precedent this (unilateral independence) would create is the undermining of the international system of legality that exists in the United Nations, the OSCE, and in the political and legal systems around the world," Markoullis said. Cyprus was divided in a Turkish invasion triggered by a Greek inspired coup in 1974. Cyprus is represented in the EU by its Greek Cypriot government. Like Kosovo, talks on the island have been repeatedly hampered by sovereignty disputes. The conflict is complicating Turkey`s own attempts to join the European Union.