[ALBSA-Info] NATO to step up Macedonia border presence

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

NATO to step up Macedonia border presence

By Ian Geoghegan

  
BRUSSELS, March 19 (Reuters) - NATO said on Monday it will send more troops 
to Kosovo's southern border with Macedonia to seal off supply routes used by 
ethnic Albanian rebels. 

Secretary-General George Robertson told reporters after talks in Brussels 
with Macedonian Foreign Minister Srgan Kerim that the international community 
would not, however, seek an extended United Nations mandate to operate within 
Macedonia itself. 

"We'll be asking individual (NATO) members to add to the troops they have in 
Kosovo in order that more flexibility can be given to the task," Robertson 
said. 

He declined to detail how many troops could be redeployed into the 
mountainous and forested border area where ethnic Albanian guerillas have 
exchanged fire with Macedonian forces over the past six days. 

"The number of troops in the border region will be adequate to the task that 
is set out and the objective will be pursued with considerable vigour," he 
said. 

Robertson said NATO had sent a very strong message to the rebels, whose 
attacks have sparked fears of a new ethnic conflict in the region, "to stop 
and stop now." 

"This is the time in the Balkans when decisions should be taken by the ballot 
box and not by the bomb or by the bullet." 

The NATO chief said the alliance's remit did not extend into Macedonia and 
stressed that Skopje had not asked for intervention on their side of the 
border. 

"What is necessary...is to interdict as much of the supplies, the traffic 
that might be going into Macedonia, so NATO is committed to tightening its 
controls of the border and additional troops will be put in place in order to 
do that. 

"We are determined that we will starve the limited number of localised 
extremists from being able to carry out their mischief and we will take what 
measures are necessary on the military front," Robertson said. 

"There's no question of new mandates. What is required...is political calm, 
the isolation of those who are undermining the democratic process...and we 
can do that with KFOR on the Kosovo side of the border, cutting off lines of 
supply, increasingly patrolling and interdicting those who might use that 
territory. 

Robertson, who later on Monday will join Kerim in talks with European Union 
foreign ministers, said NATO ambassadors would travel to Skopje on April 3 
and to Pristina the following day to take stock of the situation. 

The alliance's ambassadors, sitting as the North Atlantic Council, were due 
to meet at 1600 GMT on Monday to review the escalating crisis.