WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States Tuesday
                           endorsed Russia's attempts to deploy peacekeeping forces
                           around the Kosovo town of Orahovac and said it still opposed
                           cantonization of the province based on ethnicity.

                           Ethnic Albanians, suspicious of the Russians because of
                           Moscow's traditional pro-Serb sympathies, have prevented
                           Russian forces from replacing Dutch KFOR troops that have
                           been patrolling the area since mid-June.

                           Tuesday, KFOR officials first met with the ethnic Albanians
                           and then local Serbs. The Albanians refused to budge.

                           In Washington, State Department spokesman James Foley said
suspicions about Russian troops were misplaced.

``We believe that Russian troops will act evenhandedly, they will fulfill their mandate in Orahovac,
just as they have done elsewhere in Kosovo,'' he told his daily briefing.

He noted that Russian troops faced ethnic Albanian opposition when they went to Kosovska
Kamenica in mid-August.

He added: ``Those protests have died out as the Russians have demonstrated that they are as
committed as all other KFOR troops are to fulfilling the KFOR mandate and providing security for
all the people of Kosovo, regardless of their ethnicity or religion.''

``The Russians have comported themselves very professionally and evenhandedly throughout the
time of their deployment in Bosnia. And we see no reason to expect otherwise in Kosovo.''

Russian troops took the United States by surprise at the end of the Kosovo conflict by deploying to
the provincial capital, Pristina, before NATO troops crossed into Kosovo from Macedonia.

But Washington also saw advantages to including the Russians in the Kosovo peacekeeping
venture, if only to reassure local Serbs of their safety.

Many Serbs have fled anyway, and in some towns, the Serb and ethnic Albanian communities have
started to congregate in separate quarters.

The U.N. administrator for Kosovo, Bernard Kouchner, said last week that Kosovo Serbs might
have to be moved together to protect them from attacks by ethnic Albanians but he hoped such a
step would be only temporary.

Foley said: ``We (the United States) have made it clear that we do not support partition in any
form, and we therefore believe that cantonization based on ethnicity is a bad idea.

``It's in conflict with all that we're striving to achieve in terms of the unity and territorial integrity of a
multiethnic Kosovo.''

He said Washington fully expected the Russian deployment in Orahovac to go ahead.