[ALBSA-Info] NATO Chief Condems Balkan Violence

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

NATO Chief Condems Balkan Violence

By PAULINE JELINEK

  
WASHINGTON (AP) - NATO's top diplomat condemned increased violence by ethnic 
Albanian extremists in the Balkans but stressed the alliance still stands 
behind moderates who are trying to forge a new future in Kosovo. 

Secretary-general Lord Robertson said Friday that officials are talking with 
Albanian leaders to re-emphasize their commitment as NATO moves to let 
Yugoslav troops back into a buffer zone around Kosovo. 

``If (the security arrangement) is seen by the Albanian population as a 
signal that we've lost interest in them, that we're doing deals over their 
heads, then they will become disenchanted,'' Robertson said. 

``We're not doing that. We're specially not doing that,'' he said. 

Robertson said he talked about the subject by phone Thursday with Hans 
Haekkerup, the United Nations envoy in Kosovo. He said officials want to 
stress that they're ``not bunching together all Albanians'' for blame, but 
rather believe the fighting is caused by ``a tiny minority who ... use 
violence as a tool.'' 

``The majority of the Albanians of Kosovo ... voted for Ibrahim Rugova's 
party ... for the moderate way forward, and we need to keep that 
connection,'' he said. 

Robertson spoke a day after NATO agreed to strengthen positions on the 
Macedonian border and to allow Yugoslav troops into the buffer. 

Both moves are aimed at preventing the Kosovo province from becoming a haven 
for ethnic Albanians fighting for self-rule in Macedonia and in parts of 
Yugoslavia's main republic, Serbia, that have large Albanian-speaking 
populations. 

At a separate news conference, the ambassador of Yugoslavia, Milan St. 
Protic, said his government doesn't believe that its forces ``can be 
effective in dealing with Albanian extremists'' only inside the buffer zone. 

``It's now obvious that the Albanian extremists, whether in Kosovo, south 
Serbia or in Macedonia, will provoke further problems if not stopped by a 
mutual action of the diplomatic, political, maybe even military Yugoslav 
forces, Macedonian forces and NATO,'' he said. 

At the State Department, spokesman Richard Boucher said NATO and the United 
States had no plans to move troops outside of Kosovo and into Serb territory 
that's now the buffer zone. 

``NATO, as part of this process, is not looking to expand its role,'' Boucher 
said. ``The essential arrangement is for the Yugoslavs to come in there and 
maintain stability in that area.'' 

Kosovo has been wracked by violence through the 1990s, as ethnic Albanians in 
the province fight to wrest it from Serbia. 

In 1998, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic ordered a bloody 
crackdown on the separatist movement - a crackdown stopped only after a 
78-day NATO bombing campaign in 1999. 

After the bombing, international peacekeepers were sent in to protect ethnic 
Albanians. Yugoslav forces evacuated Kosovo and a buffer zone was set up 
around the province where only lightly armed police were allowed in. 

But ethnic Albanians guerrillas have since turned the buffer zone into a 
staging area for attacks on Serbian and Macedonian forces. The latest 
measures by NATO are meant to stop the violence. 

But there are fears that the move could be seen as an obstruction to ethnic 
Albanians who want to reunite all Albanian-speaking regions of the Balkans 
and that Kosovo's nearly 2 million ethnic Albanians could turn against the 
peacekeepers.