[ALBSA-Info] NATO urges Yugoslav-ethnic Albanian peace talks

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

NATO urges Yugoslav-ethnic Albanian peace talks

By Douglas Hamilton

  
BRUSSELS, March 12 (Reuters) - Yugoslav and ethnic Albanian representatives 
who agreed a ceasefire for southern Serbia on Monday should hold face-to-face 
peace negotiations within a week, NATO Secretary-General George Robertson 
said on Monday. 

He urged all people in crisis zones in southern Serbia, Kosovo and northern 
Macedonia to stay calm as the Yugoslav army and police prepared to enter a 
tense part of the NATO-ordained buffer zone exploited by ethnic Albanian 
guerrillas. 

In a statement welcoming the ceasefire, Robertson emphasised the "commitment 
of the signatories to the ceasefire to enter into direct dialogue within one 
week." 

He called for renunciation of violence and full support for efforts to find a 
peaceful long-term solution to disputes. 

Roberston said Yugoslav forces, by agreement with the Western alliance, would 
"very soon" enter a strip of the buffer zone on Kosovo's boundary line with 
Serbia along the Macedonian border from which they had been barred for 21 
months by NATO. 

NATO wants to help Yugoslavia regain control of territory seized by ethnic 
Albanian guerrillas who have exploited its no-go order to Serbian forces 
after alliance troops entered Kosov in June, 1999, and whose attacks on Serb 
forces threaten a new Balkans conflict. 

"I urge all parties, within southern Serbia, Kosovo and the former Yugoslav 
Republic of Macedonia to remain calm and to lend their understanding and 
support to these efforts," Robertson's statement said. "NATO will continue 
firmly and fairly to do all it call...to bring lasting peace, security, 
stability and prosperity to the Balkans region," he added. 

NATO HOLDS SERB LEASH 

Robertson also called on the ethnic communities of Kosovo to provide their 
full support to peace efforts in southern Serbia. 

The Western allies have brokered a deal with Belgrade to balance the 
re-establishment of Serbian authority in the buffer zone with trust-building 
measures to persuade the local ethnic Albanian people that they need not fear 
repression. 

NATO says it will keep tight control of the military conditions -- the 
numbers and the hardware -- under which Serb forces return to the buffer 
zone. It says it has secured Belgrade's promise that there will be no 
disproportionate resort to force as in Kosovo in 1998/99. 

Monday's ceasefire was the first step in a delicate process of returning the 
Kosovo buffer zone in stages to Serbian control so it no longer offers a safe 
haven to guerrillas believed to be seeking a wider conflict in the name of 
Albanian separatism. 

Senior Serbian officials, however, have voiced unease over NATO rules that 
their forces may not use the protection of armoured personnel carriers or 
employ artillery if engaged. 

Reports that Serbia will deploy the 7th Battalion of the Yugoslav 2nd Army in 
the operation have also raised concern. 

Months ago, NATO considered this unit a dangerous paramilitary cudgel of 
former Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic for the intimidation of 
pro-independence parties in Montenegro.