[ALBSA-Info] {QIKSH «ALBEUROPA»} NEWS: Eliminating security zone in southern Serbia would be "premature" - NATO (AFP, February 15, 2001)

[Wolfgang Plarre]

http://sg.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/world/afp/article.html?s=singapore/headlines/010215/world/afp/Eliminating_security_zone_in_southern_Serbia_would_be__premature__-_NATO.html

Thursday, February 15 10:22 PM SGT 

Eliminating security zone in southern Serbia would be "premature" - NATO

BRUSSELS, Feb 15 (AFP) - Eliminating a security zone separating Kosovo
from the rest of southern Serbia would be "premature" at this point,
NATO chief George Robertson said Thursday after meeting here with
Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic.
    Covic came to NATO headquarters with Foreign Minister Goran
Svilanovic to present alliance ambassadors with Belgrade's plan for a
negotiated settlement to the nearly year-long conflict against
separatist rebels in southern Serbia.
    "There is no longer a need for such wide ground safety zone as a
buffer zone," Covic told reporters, "because there are no hostilities
between military or the police of Yugoslavia and KFOR," the NATO-led
multinational peacekeeping force in the area.
    Up to 1,600 gunmen from the self-proclaimed Liberation Army of
Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac (UCPMB) have dug into a demilitarised
buffer zone on the border between Serbia and Kosovo, declared off limits
to Serbian troops and Kosovo's NATO-led peacekeepers (KFOR).
    The rebels and local Albanian politicians are calling for the
Presevo Valley to be grafted on to UN-administered Kosovo.
    Robertson said NATO was "prepared to consider such changes" to the
buffer zone, but only "if it will not create a vacuum or lead to new
fighting. Premature changes... carry the risk of only making matters
worse."
    Covic and Svilanovic were in Brussels as peace talks between
Belgrade and southern Serbia's breakaway ethnic Albanian community
appeared distant after a leading Albanian politician refused to
negotiate without rebel fighters, condemned by Belgrade as "terrorists".
    The peace plan Covic and Svilanovic presented here was drafted by
Belgrade's reformist authorities to end the long conflict between
Serbian security forces and guerrillas demanding that the mainly ethnic
Albanian region be grafted onto Kosovo.
    But a day after Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica ruled out even
talking to the rebels' political wing, Riza Halimi, mayor of Presevo --
the largest Albanian community in the south -- said he would not join
talks unless the rebels were allowed in too.
    He also objected to a clause in the Serbian peace plan threatening
"anti-terrorist" actions in the region if the talks, which call for
progressive demilitarisation, fail.
    Covic said here: "We don't have time. We must prevent possible
conflicts of wider proportion. We must stop any extremism...However for
the sake of the people who live in the region it is necessary to do all
this gradually and without any haste."
    Robertson said Covic's peace plan contained "constructive proposals"
that were "an encouraging basis for negociation."
    "We today call upon the ethnic Albanian community in southern Serbia
to begin...a dialogue with Belgrade to build together a balanced long
term settlement," he said, adding that NATO saw the plan "as a
beginning. These proposals must not be seen as an ultimatum."
    The NATO chief said the alliance would "maintain a robust stance
against those who use violence to promote their political objectives.
    "We consider it intolerable that there are armed extremists using
the ground safety zone to launch attacks and to seek to provoke
counter-reaction."
    Covic and Svilanovic were to meet later Thursday with the European
Union's Political and Security Committee and have a working dinner with
Javier Solana, EU high representative for security and foreign policy.

Copyright © 2000 AFP


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