LISBON, July 19 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday that Kosovo will get independence in the end.

    "President Bush made very clear when he was in Albania that the United States stands for the implications of the Ahtisaari report, which is that Kosovo will gain its independence," she told reporters after talks with her Portuguese counterpart, Luis Amado.

    "So the future is clear. The process of how to get there is one that we are working on -- we are committed to working on it. But I'm simply reiterating what President Bush made clear in Albania."

    During his visit to Albanian last month, Bush asked the UN Security Council to grant the Serbian province independence sooner than later.

    "At some point in time, sooner rather than later, you've got to say enough is enough, Kosovo is independent," Bush told a news conference in Albania.

    The American announcement further antagonized Russia, which is firmly opposed to Kosovo independence.

    UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari submitted his plan for Kosovo's status to the UN Security Council at the end of March. But Russia has rejected three draft resolutions based on Ahtisaari's proposals, which will lead to "supervised independence" for Kosovo.

    Both the United States and the European Union have indicated that they would now move the issue back to bilateral negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina.

    "We are working with allies on the process by which we come to a solution of the situation in Kosovo," said Rice on Thursday.

    EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said Tuesday that Serbia and the Kosovar authorities would be given 120 days to negotiate a solution if the UN Security Council cannot make a decision soon.

    "If there is no possibility in the UN at this time I am sure there will be an agreement by the members of the Contact Group to open a process of negotiations, of more or less what we introduced in the draft resolution, for about 120 days," said Solana.

    The Contact Group, created in the mid-1990s, is made up of the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia.

    "What we are doing is trying to get the process to move on, to re-start the talks between the two sides for a limited period of time," said Solana.

    Serbia and the breakaway province of Kosovo failed to reach agreement on Ahtisaari's proposals after 17 months of negotiations.

    Rice on Thursday offered Serbia and Kosovo NATO membership after the settlement of the issue.

    "I want to be very clear that we see a future in which Kosovo and Serbia are both strong and free, and in which both are fully integrated into the Euro-Atlantic horizon and the Euro-Atlantic structures," she said.

    Kosovo was put under UN administration in 1999 after NATO air strikes drove Serbian troops out of it. Serbia wants the province to remain part of it while the overwhelming ethnic Albanian majority want immediate independence.