[ALBSA-Info] Belgrade says committed to peace despite violence

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

Belgrade says committed to peace despite violence

By Andrew Gray

BELGRADE, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Yugoslavia said it was still committed to a 
peaceful resolution of the conflict near the Kosovo boundary despite a day of 
violence which left three Serb policemen and one ethnic Albanian guerrilla 
dead. 

Belgrade said the deaths on Sunday of the three policemen killed by anti-tank 
landmines in the Presevo Valley area, just a few kilometres inside Serbia 
proper, were part of a broader campaign of terror by ethnic Albanians. 

Serb ministers linked the deaths to the bombing of a bus in ethnic 
Albanian-dominated Kosovo on Friday in which seven Serbs were killed and 
dozens more wounded. 

But the Presevo Valley guerrillas distanced themselves from the bus bombing 
and insisted they too wanted a peaceful resolution to their conflict with 
Serb security forces, which has claimed around 30 lives in sporadic fighting 
since it began a year ago. 

Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica held an emergency meeing with top 
government and security officials on Sunday evening. He said they had agreed 
a series of measures to "protect against terrorism," giving no details. 

But he made clear his government still wanted to solve the problems of the 
Presevo Valley through dialogue. 

"The meeting noted that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia will remain 
dedicated to its peaceful policy and launch even stronger diplomatic action 
to have the issues of Serbia's south resolved through negotiations," he said. 

That remark, at least, may bring a small sigh of relief at NATO headquarters. 
Secretary General George Robertson urged Serbia's new reformist rulers to 
stick to their policy of restraint, which has won praise from Western 
governments. 

"I deplore the escalation of the violence in southern Serbia and urge the 
leadership of both sides to exercise maximum restraint," he said in a 
statement issued in Brussels. 

"The problems of the region cannot be solved by violence; they can only be 
settled through direct negotiations between the parties. Today's events make 
the urgency of moving ahead with such negotiations all the more clear." 

BELGRADE DEMANDS ACTION FROM NATO PEACEKEEPERS 

The rebels say they are fighting Serb repression of the substantial ethnic 
Albanian population in the Presevo Valley. Serb officials have branded them 
terrorists whose only goal is to join the area to ethnic Albanian-dominated 
Kosovo. 

Yugoslav Foreign minister Goran Svilanovic wrote to Robertson asking for 
urgent action from NATO peacekeepers in Kosovo to clamp down on extremists. 

"It is obvious that we are dealing with well-planned, premeditated and 
synchronised attacks aimed at provoking Yugoslav security forces and creating 
a much broader conflict," Svilanovic wrote in the letter, quoted by Beta news 
agency. 

"The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia cannot allow Albanian terrorists to kill 
its citizens," he said. 

The guerrillas said one of their number had been killed and two wounded in a 
firefight with Serb forces later on Sunday. Each side blamed the other for 
starting that skirmish. 

Reporters taken to the scene of the landmine blasts saw smouldering charred 
bodies, a vehicle blown apart with fragments scattered up to 200 metres 
(yards) away, and two identical craters, about 1.5 metres (five feet) deep 
and 2.5 metres wide. 

Serb officials said the police vehicle had two landmines on Sunday morning 
planted near the village of Lucane, a few kilometres from the boundary with 
Kosovo and on the edge of a buffer zone which runs along the Serbian side of 
the boundary. 

The guerrillas have made the five km (three mile) wide buffer zone their 
base, taking advantage of the fact only lightly armed Serb police are allowed 
inside under a deal between NATO and Belgrade agreed in June 1999. 

NATO, anxious to bolster Serbia's new democratic rulers who took power after 
the downfall of the alliance's bete noire Slobodan Milosevic, has called on 
the rebels to lay down their arms and given cautious backing to a Serb peace 
plan