BELGRADE, Serbia, AUG 26 (AP/UNB) - German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle urged Serbia on Thursday to stop challenging Kosovo's independence and instead focus on a bid to join the European Union.

Westerwelle used his first visit to the Balkan country to express Germany's disagreement with a resolution Serbia has presented to the U.N. General Assembly that calls for more talks on Kosovo's status and says its "unilateral secession" is unacceptable.

The U.N.'s highest court said last month in an advisory opinion that Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008 was not against the international law.

"The independent Kosovo is a reality, and the opinion by the International Court of Justice clearly confirmed it," Westerwelle told a panel of Belgrade university students on Thursday.

He said that the General Assembly in New York is not the place for talks between Serbia and Kosovo "on practical matters and a better life." He said the negotiations should be held in Brussels, the EU headquarters.

"The day will come when Belgrade and Pristina will sit at the same table and talk about the EU," Westerwelle told the students through a translator. "Someone would say it is an utopia, but the
reconciliation is possible if you face the reality."

Serbia's Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic said after talks with Westerwelle that the Balkan country is ready for a negotiated solution for Kosovo by consulting with the EU.

Kosovo came under U.N. and NATO administration after a NATO-led air war halted former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in 1999, but Security Council
resolution 1244 that established the interim U.N. administration left its final status in question.

The 192-member General Assembly is set to vote on the Serbian resolution next month. Kosovo has been recognized by 69 countries - including the United States and most EU states - but Serbia, supported by Russia and China, has not given up its claim over the territory which it considers the cradle of statehood and religion.

Many Serbs consider Germany their historic adversary over the two World Wars and more recently the violent breakup of the Serb-led Yugoslavia in the 1990s, when Germany was among the first to
recognize the independence of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.

However, Germany is Serbia's biggest economic partner with a euro2-billion ($2.5-billion) annual trade exchange. Germany is also  the home of nearly one million Serb "guest workers."

Serbia's bid to join the EU largely depends on Germany and its leading role in the bloc. The Balkan country's membership has been stalled by its failure to arrest wartime Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic who was charged with genocide by a U.N. war crimes court for his role in the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

After his visit to Croatia on Wednesday, Westerwelle travels to Bosnia on Thursday and Kosovo on Friday.