[ALBSA-Info] {QIKSH =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=AB?=ALBEUROPA=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=BB?=} Albania Says Concerns Linger Over Yugoslavia

[Nikoll A Mirakaj]

Albania Says Concerns Linger Over Yugoslavia 

PRAGUE, Oct 13, 2000 -- (Reuters) Albania is cautiously optimistic on recent developments in Yugoslavia but still harbors concerns over how the Albanian ethnic majority in Kosovo will be treated, Albanian Foreign Minister Paskal Milo said on Thursday.

"(We hope that the new administration) will give Albanians in Albania, but especially in Kosovo a clear sign that they will be treated like a nation which has a right to live in its country," Milo told reporters in Prague.

"We do not belong to those governments and states which are ecstatic over the latest developments in Yugoslavia. We are following developments there very carefully and with certain reservations."

Vojislav Kostunica took office as Yugoslav president last week after mass protests forced Slobodan Milosevic to concede defeat in a September presidential election.

Tension has long existed between the two countries over independence-minded ethnic Albanians in the Serbian province of Kosovo, supported by the Albanian government.

Last year NATO bombed Yugoslavia, expelling the Serbian forces sent by Milosevic to Kosovo and stopping their bloody repression of the ethnic Albanians. The United Nations now administers the province.

But Kostunica's ouster of Milosevic does not mean that Yugoslavia is any more willing to let go of its southernmost province.

Senior reformer Zoran Djindic told the Beta news agency on Wednesday that the new government of Kostunica would seek to have Serb forces once more stationed on Kosovo soil, a move United Nations chief administrator in Kosovo Bernard Kouchner rejected for fears of provoking further conflict.

For its part, Albania hopes that the new Yugoslav administration will "abandon the old anti-Albanian and nationalistic heritage, and that it will not have any connection with the old Milosevic regime," Milo said adding that the change alone was not a panacea for Yugoslavia's troubles.

"It would be a mistake to think that the advent of (Vojislav) Kostunica to the forefront in Yugoslavia will solve all of the problems that Yugoslavia inherited from the crisis of the last 10 years," he said.

(C)2000 Copyright Reuters Limited

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