http://www.centraleurope.com/yugoslaviatoday/news.php3?id=213487&section=Kosovo

Holbrooke Meets Kosovo Serbs, Wins Agreement on "Hostages"

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Yugoslavia, Oct 25, 2000 -- (Agence France
Presse) Richard Holbrooke, US ambassador to the United Nations, met leaders of
Kosovo's Serb minority here Wednesday and hailed their decision to back a call
for ethnic Albanians to be released from Yugoslav jails.

The fate of some 950 Kosovo Albanians still believed imprisoned in Serbia 16
months after the end of the Kosovo war is one of the main issues still poisoning
relations between the province's rival communities.

Eight Serb leaders, including Oliver Ivanovic and Marko Jaksic who supported
Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica's campaign in northern Kosovo, signed an
agreement during Holbrooke's visit calling for the prisoners' release and also
for
the disappeared from both communities to be accounted for.

"This is a big step forward, and I hope it will be implemented," Holbrooke said.

The detained Albanians are mainly prisoners of war or political prisoners and
for
many in Kosovo they are seen as "hostages" of Belgrade.

Ivanovic told reporters that some 1,000 Serbs were still missing after the war
between Albanian separatists and the mainly Serb Yugoslav forces, which was
brought to an end by a 78-day NATO air bombardment.

Holbrooke was to leave Mitrovica after his meeting to travel on the Skopje where
he will meet Kostunica for the first time on the sidelines of the Balkan summit.

He said he would discuss the issues facing Kosovo, a Yugoslav province under a
UN international protectorate since the war, but that he did not expect any
major
new agreements.

"It's the first time I will meet him and it's only the second time US officials
will meet
him," he said, "We're not expecting any great breakthroughs in Skopje."

He said the main issue he would discuss would be the "speedy admission of
Yugoslavia into the UN as a full member, with full rights."

He also apologized for giving the impression Tuesday at a news conference in
Pristina that the meeting, arranged at the last minute, was at Kostunica's
invitation.
In fact, he said, the United States had requested the meeting.