The Russian news agency Interfax and other agencies said Talbott emerged from the talks saying they had mainly talked about the G-8 talks set to take place in a week's time in the German city of Cologne.

Talbott said the Russians had a claim to their own ``zone of responsibility'' in Kosovo and the United States backed this claim.But he did not specify which part of Kosovo the Russians could control or whose authority the Russian forces would operate under.

Russian news media said today it was possible those issues would only be settled at the G-8 summit, where Russia is to be represented by President Boris Yeltsin.

The Talbott-Ivanov talks were urgent because a standoff developed last evening between Russian and British troops in the Kosovo capital Pristina.

The Russianparatroopers were still refusing this morning to let the Britons into Pristina airport.

On Russian television, news film showed a Russian armoured vehicle parked crossways, blocking the entrance and preventing the passage of a British tank.

Talbott departed for Washington after the talks. NATO had previously rejected Russia's demand for a separate zone on the stated grounds that it could lead to the partition of Kosovo.

According to Talbott earlier, further Russian peacekeepers would not cross the border into Yugoslavia from Bosnia where they are currently deployed until an agreement had been reached on the status of the Kosovo units. Russia has 5,000 men in Bosnia.

Moscow's plans to reinforce 200 paratroopers holding Splatina airport near Pristina suffered a serious setback yesterday when its former Warsaw Pact allies Hungary and Bulgaria refused to provide an air corridor for airlifting Russian troops through their airspace.

Russia will have its full-blooded contingent in Kosovo, but we don't havepresidential permission till an agreement is reached,'' the chief Russian military negotiator, General Leonid Ivashov confirmed after the talks with United States military experts.

The US military is to respond to Moscow's proposals on the modus operandi of the Russian contingent on Tuesday, Ivashnov said.