[ALBSA-Info] US troops boost patrols on Kosovo-Macedonia border

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

US troops boost patrols on Kosovo-Macedonia border

By Elisaveta Konstantinova
  
SKOPJE, March 3 (Reuters) - U.S. peacekeepers in Kosovo have beefed up border 
patrols after ethnic Albanian fighters occupied a village inside Macedonia, 
triggering firefights with Macedonian security forces, a NATO official said 
on Saturday. 

The move followed NATO assurances to Macedonia that it was committed to its 
territorial integrity and would take robust measures to increase security on 
the Kosovo side of the border. 

"One U.S. platoon is deployed in the area of Debelde. It is conducting 
patrols and has installed an observation post. There is also air 
surveillance," a KFOR official told Reuters in the Macedonian capital Skopje. 

Macedonia appealed for help in dealing with violence it said could upset 
delicately balanced relations between its majority Slavs and minority 
Albanians. NATO reacted by sending a team to Skopje for emergency talks that 
wound up on Friday. 

Skopje has threatened a military strike to eject what it says are ethnic 
Albanian "terrorists" occupying the border village of Tanusevci, 40 kms (25 
miles) north of Skopje. 

Debelde sits opposite Tanusevci on the Kosovo side of the mountainous border. 
The U.S. KFOR contingent is stationed in the area. 

There has been sporadic shooting between the ethnic Albanian gunmen and 
Macedonian troops. But Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe 
(OSCE) monitors on the Macedonian side of the border said the situation was 
calm on Saturday. 

"There are patrols on the other side of the border, and helicopters," said an 
OSCE official after a visit to the area. 

The NATO delegation urged the Macedonian government to refrain from use of 
force and seek political means to solve the flare-up. NATO said such strategy 
would help preserve fragile relations between Macedonian Slavs and Albanians. 

Macedonia, whose two million population is one third ethnic Albanian, borders 
Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, Serbia and its mainly Albanian province Kosovo, 
and is vulnerable to any spillover of violence in and around Kosovo. 

MACEDONIA WANTS KFOR TO GET TOUGH 

Macedonia has complained that KFOR has not done enough to prevent guerrillas 
and supplies of arms and equipment to slip over its side of the border. 

Serbia, Yugoslavia's main republic, has similar grievances over the 
infiltration of Kosovo Albanian guerrillas into its Presevo Valley region, 
where sporadic fighting has killed about 30 people over the past year. 

After repeated Serbian protests, NATO has agreed to a narrowing of a post-war 
buffer strip along Kosovo's boundary where the guerrillas have flourished, as 
long as Serbian security forces pull back first. 

A security adviser to Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski said the NATO 
team and the government had made progress towards agreeing on joint action to 
resolve the border tension. 

"The extremists will be isolated physically and politically. We agreed that 
KFOR would undertake measures similar to those taken for the protection of 
the border between Kosovo and southern Serbia," Nikola Dimitrov told Reuters. 

Macedonia has, nevertheless, left open the option to use force if KFOR fails 
to choke off supplies from Kosovo to the village in order to force out the 
guerrillas, said Dimitrov. 

"Some Macedonian military intervention is not excluded," he said, adding 
there was no set time frame within which Macedonia was prepared to wait for 
the guerrillas abandon the village. 

"We cannot set deadlines, but maintaining the status quo for too long will 
encourage the extremists to expand their operation along broader areas of the 
border," said Dimitrov. 

In any military operation, Macedonian troops would see only to eject the 
guerrillas and stop at the border, he said. 

On Friday, Dimitrov criticised NATO for trying to restrain the Macedonian 
army after having let through the guerrillas. 

"The major achievement of NATO's visit is that they realised the situation is 
serious. Before the visit, our assessments of the situation were different," 
said Dimitrov.