Subject: NATO chief calls on Kosovo to condemn Serbia violence
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2000 9:40:14 PST
From: C-afp@... (AFP)
Organization: Copyright 2000 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
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PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Nov 30 (AFP) - NATO Secretary General
George Robertson on Thursday called on Kosovo's ethnic Albanian
political leaders to condemn attacks by "extremists" on the
administrative border with Serbia.
"My message on the Presevo valley was that extremists should be
influenced to stop what they are doing because it is against the
interest of everybody in Kosovo," Robertson told a press conference
here.
"They should be isolated and they should be condemned by all the
leaders here. The leadership here in Kosovo has a role to play
restraining extremists in the area," Robertson added.
His comments follow an attack last week by ethnic Albanian
guerrillas from the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and
Bujanovac (UCPMB) on Serbian territory in a demilitarised buffer
zone along Kosovo's administrative border with Serbia.
Belgrade had blamed the flare-up on NATO peacekeepers in Kosovo,
whom they accused of failing to cut off arms shipments to the ethnic
Albanian fighters being supplied from the UN-run province.
Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica has warned the renewed
fighting had risked "setting the entire region ablaze," while
Yugoslav forces massed near the tense border zone.