[ALBSA-Info] Kostunica accepts buffer zone plan, lambasts NATO

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

Kostunica accepts buffer zone plan, lambasts NATO

By Andrew Gray

  
BELGRADE, March 8 (Reuters) - President Vojislav Kostunica accepted on 
Thursday a NATO plan to let Yugoslav forces enter a buffer zone next to 
Kosovo and Macedonia but accused the alliance of being too scared to tackle 
ethnic Albanian rebels. 

Kostunica also said he was optimistic Yugoslavia would meet a U.S. deadline 
at the end of this month to start co-operating with the U.N. war crimes 
tribunal, which wants to try his predecessor Slobodan Milosevic, or face 
economic sanctions. 

But he said the violence plaguing Kosovo and the areas around its borders was 
the most urgent issue facing the country and charged that the mission of the 
NATO-led KFOR force in the province had produced "disastrous" results. 

"What we are really lacking badly is more understanding, more goodwill on the 
part of KFOR and NATO and more readiness to risk something, maybe more 
courage on the part of NATO and KFOR that is so badly lacking at this 
moment," he said. 

Kostunica, a leader of the reform alliance which ousted Milosevic last 
October, said Yugoslav forces now faced a dangerous mission as they were 
being asked to deal with KFOR's failure to establish security in the buffer 
zone. 

At a meeting in Brussels on Thursday, NATO envoys proposed letting Yugoslav 
forces into a narrow slice of Serbia next to southeastern Kosovo, where the 
zone around the edge of the province hits the Macedonian frontier to the 
south. 

Ethnic Albanian guerrillas have used the buffer zone for more than a year to 
launch attacks on Serbian security forces. Violence also blamed by the 
authorities on ethnic Albanians has spilled into northern Macedonia in the 
past few weeks. 

Military sources say the pocket opened up to Yugoslav forces could be between 
five and 25 sq km in size. NATO said only Serbian Interior Ministry police 
and Yugoslav army border guards would be allowed in, not regular army troops. 

The five km (three mile) wide zone was set up as NATO entered Kosovo to keep 
Yugoslav forces at a distance in the aftermath of their war with the alliance 
over Milosevic's crackdown on the province's ethnic Albanian majority. 

MILITARY ALLIANCE OR AID AGENCY? 

Now Yugoslav forces are set to return to part of the zone, they could face 
ethnic Albanian hostility from several sides. 

"KFOR is abandoning protection of the border and is inviting our army to be 
in the crossfire," Kostunica said at his regular monthly news conference. 

"The army will of course do this, but it now undoubtedly has to make up for 
the mistakes of others," he said, adding he hoped Yugoslav forces could enter 
the pocket by the end of this month. 

He accused KFOR of failing to disarm ethnic Albanian guerrillas and of 
"stimulating instead of curbing" aspirations of a Greater Albania because it 
was too concerned about protecting its own troops rather than local people. 

"Is NATO a military or a humanitarian organisation? What's the reason for its 
presence there?" he asked. 

Kostunica, who describes himself as a moderate nationalist, expressed some 
frustration at international demands for speedy cooperation with the U.N. 
tribunal in The Hague dealing with the warfare of the past decade which tore 
the old Yugoslavia apart. 

The United States Congress has set a March 31 deadline for Belgrade to start 
cooperating with the tribunal or its aid allocation will be frozen and 
Washington will oppose badly needed loans from international financial 
institutions. 

Kostunica said his government was committed to cooperating with the tribunal, 
although he has heavily criticised it as biased against Serbs and practising 
selective justice. 

He did not say whether he favoured handing over suspects, which the court's 
chief prosecutor sees as the key sign of cooperation. But he said he was 
convinced Yugoslavia would do enough to meet the U.S. deadline.