[ALBSA-Info] NATO resumes Balkan ceasefire efforts

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

NATO resumes Balkan ceasefire efforts

By Fredrik Dahl

  
BUJANOVAC, March 11 (Reuters) - A NATO special envoy indicated on Sunday he 
was moving closer to a ceasefire deal between ethnic Albanian guerrillas and 
government security forces in Serbia's Presevo Valley bordering Kosovo. 

"We are hopeful," Pieter Feith, special envoy of NATO Secretary-General 
George Robertson, told Reuters. 

"It is very sensitive, there are lots of developments that run more or less 
parallel. We have to get it right but I would like to ask you to be a little 
patient for another 24 hours and see if we can get results." 

Both the Presevo Valley and nearby Macedonia, scenes of recent Balkan 
violence, were reported quiet overnight. 

Feith's talks with both sides on Saturday failed to produce a deal but he was 
still cautiously optimistic as he went into more talks on Sunday with a 
Serbian delegation led by Deputy Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic in the town of 
Bujanovac. 

Afterwards he said he would meet the Albanian side again "when the moment is 
appropriate and when they are ready for further contacts." 

The rebels said on Saturday the deal on the table was unacceptable as it 
included a plan to deploy a Serbian special police unit in one village. 

But on Sunday Tahir Dalipi, a member of the ethnic Albanian political council 
which backs the guerrilla group, said there were some indications a deal 
could be reached soon. 

"There was word that it might be signed today," he told Reuters by telephone. 
"I am very hopeful that the agreement will be reached and the ceasefire will 
be respected." 

The rebels say they are fighting Serb repression of the local ethnic Albanian 
population. Serbia's new reformist rulers say the guerrillas are terrorists 
whose only aim is to join the Presevo Valley onto ethnic Albanian-dominated 
Kosovo. 

NATO SEEKS END TO BALKAN VIOLENCE 

NATO's involvement in the peace efforts reflects Western concern at the 
violence on Kosovo's boundary, which has spread to the frontier with 
Macedonia in recent weeks. 

Hoping to get help in putting a lid on the violence, NATO decided last week 
to let Yugoslav forces into a sliver of the five km (three mile) buffer zone 
which runs along the outside of U.N.-ruled Kosovo's borders with the rest of 
Serbia. 

But before doing so, the alliance wants the guerrillas to sign up to a 
ceasefire deal which, on paper at least, would guarantee the Yugoslav forces 
some safety from attack. 

Lieutenant General Carlo Cabigiosu, the commander of the NATO-led KFOR 
peacekeeping force, met Covic on Saturday to discuss details on the Yugoslav 
forces' deployment. 

A KFOR statement released on Saturday night said they had "agreed the basis 
for the future agreement" of how Belgrade's forces would return to the buffer 
zone but gave no details. 

"There will now be a further series of meetings between KFOR staffs and FRY 
(Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) officials to examine the detailed 
co-ordination aspects to implement today's agreement," the statement said. 

MACEDONIA ON GUARD 

In Macedonia, the focus of sudden concern over the past week as Macedonian 
security forces were involved in two clashes with guerrillas, the situation 
was generally calm. But officials said they were on their guard for more 
violence. 

"We have some information that the terrorists are preparing something in the 
next couple of days, but we are motivated and ready, and we have no intention 
of leaving the area," Interior Ministry spokesman Stevo Pendarovski said on 
Saturday. 

He said guerrillas had taken up positions inside the northern village of 
Malino and that security forces were steering clear of the village itself for 
the moment. 

On Sunday, he said all was quiet overnight. 

The group itself, the National Liberation Army, appeared to reveal more 
details about its aims in a statement faxed to 

German broadcaster Deutsche Welle. 

Countering suggestions they were separatists intent on creating a "Greater 
Albania," the fax said the NLA respected the territorial integrity of 
Macedonia but was fighting for "equal rights" for ethnic Albanians, Deutsche 
Welle reported. 

At least five people, four members of the security forces and one rebel, have 
been killed in Macedonia in the past week in clashes with the guerrillas.