[ALBSA-Info] Serbian leader sees south Serbia ceasefire soon

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

Serbian leader sees south Serbia ceasefire soon

BUJANOVAC, Yugoslavia, March 2 (Reuters) - A Serbian leader voiced optimism 
on Friday that fighting with ethnic Albanian guerrillas in the volatile 
Presevo Valley area bordering Kosovo would soon cease. 

Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic, speaking after meeting NATO 
officials in the town of Bujanovac, said he believed talks with ethnic 
Albanian representatives would get under way in the near future. 

He said the NATO delegation had accepted virtually all Belgrade had asked for 
in its plan to peacefully resolve the crisis in the remote area, where 
Serbian forces have clashed repeatedly with the guerrillas over the last 
year. 

"I believe we will soon start a dialogue with representatives of the Albanian 
community and that the time will come soon when we will find that both sides 
have ceased fire," he told reporters. 

Such a ceasefire must be respected in order to implement Belgrade's peace 
plan, which foresees demilitarisation of the area and the increased presence 
of ethnic Albanian in local institutions, he said. 

Pieter Feith, director of NATO's Balkans Task Force, said he was encouraged 
by what had been achieved so far. He said he had also met ethnic Albanian 
representatives earlier in the day. 

"I think that by tomorrow we can look with confidence towards a new step in 
trying to resolve the problems in southern Serbia," Feith told reporters, 
saying he would meet Yugoslav Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic in Belgrade 
on Saturday. 

WEST ALARMED 

About 30 people have died in the fighting just east of U.N.-ruled Kosovo 
since it began in early 2000, alarming Western governments hoping for 
regional stability following the downfall of Slobodan Milosevic as Yugoslav 
president last October. 

The rebels have gained in strength since then, taking advantage of a five km 
(three mile) wide buffer zone next to the Kosovo boundary from which the 
Yugoslav army and Serb special police are banned. 

Belgrade wants this strip of land to be narrowed or abolished altogether to 
allow it to retake control of the zone. 

NATO foreign ministers meeting in Brussels earlier this week said they were 
accelerating efforts to help Serbia peacefully regain control of the Presevo 
Valley by implementing a phased and conditioned reduction of the buffer zone. 

Both the Serbian government and ethnic Albanian political leaders say they 
want to solve the crisis peacefully, but they have yet to agree on place and 
composition of their negotiation teams. 

The Albanian side says the guerrillas must be represented in the talks. But 
Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica was quoted as saying that "Albanian 
terrorists" could not take part. 

"Would anyone in France or Spain accept to directly negotiate with 
terrorists? No, he wouldn't," Kostunica told the daily Danas in an interview 
to be published on Saturday, the independent Beta news agency reported. 

"...the ones who took up arms or who stood behind the latest hideous murder 
of three policemen cannot negotiate," Kostunica was quoted as saying, 
referring to the killing of three Serbian police by anti-tank landmines on 
February 18.