http://sg.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/world/article.html?s=singapore/headlines\
/001217/world/afp/Belgrade_awaits_UN_response_over_clearing_rebels_out_of_Serbia\
.html

Sunday, December 17 7:53 PM SGT

Belgrade awaits UN response over clearing rebels out of Serbia

BELGRADE, Dec 17 (AFP) -

Belgrade was waiting Sunday for a response from the United Nations after
threatening to use its own
anti-terrorist methods if the UN did not clear ethnic Albanian rebels from
southern Serbia fast.

At an emergency meeting in Bujanovac, just outside the buffer zone between the
province and
Serbia proper on Saturday, President Vojislav Kostunica and his administration
demanded the "UN
Security Council take measures as soon as possible for the urgent withdrawal of
Albanian terrorists"
from the area.

"Failing this, Yugoslavia will use its legal and legitimate rights to resolve
the problem by using
methods internationally authorised in the fight against terrorism, which is its
duty," said the declaration
approved by the Serbian and Yugoslav government at the session chaired by
Kostunica.

Yugoslav Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic, who was to attend a Security Council
session on
Tuesday, said he would "seriously explain to its members that our army and the
police are ready to
defend the territory of our country."

"But we expect determined measures to be taken urgently by those who are
responsible and those
are (NATO-led peacekeepers in Kosovo) KFOR and (UN mission in the province)
UNMIK,"
Svilanovic told Belgrade radio B92.

And Zoran Djindjic of Kostunica's Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS), told
Beta news agency
that he would expect the council to make a "compromising solution by December 31
the latest."

Kostunica himself said on Saturday he was an "optimist," regarding the future
moves by the United
Nations, expecting the council to "make a step further" towards solving the
crisis in the tense
demilitarized zone between UN administered Kosovo and the rest of Serbia.

"It is very encouraging that the council put the situation in the southern
Serbia on its agenda, which
shows that it is giving full importance to this issue," Kostunica said.

But he warned that only this move "will not be sufficient."

"Our goal is to have really safe ground zone with no terrorists, with both Serbs
and Albanians living
there," Kostunica said.

The five-kilometer (three-mile) wide ground security zone between Kosovo and
Serbia proper was
set up by the 1999 peace deal between Belgrade and NATO. The area is banned for
any armed
forces except lightely-armed Serbian police.

But the self-proclaimed Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac
(UCPMB) has
clashed with Serb police in recent weeks, killing three policemen and seizing
several villages in the
zone.

The rebels want the towns of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac, and the
surrounding area, which
have a large ethnic Albanian population, to be part of an independent Kosovo,
which is currently
under UN administration.

Asked whether he expected NATO-led peacekeepers in Kosovo (KFOR) to disarm the
UCPMB
rebels, Kostunica said there "are many ways for solving the problem, with or
without KFOR and
their action."

"Yugoslavia will examine all the possibilities," Kostunica said.

The calls to the UN and NATO came amid reports by the Yugoslav army that the
UCPMB guerillas
were planning further offensive in time or immediatelly after Serbia's
legislative polls, due to be held
on December 23.

General Vladimir Lazarevic, commander of the Yugoslav 3rd army in charge of the
region said the
guerillas "were gathering men and arms... planning an offensive around December
27 which would
include several thousand terrorists."

"They are bringing the weaponry into to zone, fixing up bridges and improving
communication links,"
Lazarevic told Beta.

He said the number of "terrorists in the area is not important since their aims
are clear -- to
destabilise the country and fulfil their goals."

Kostunica's administration was praised by the West for avoiding any use of force
to solve the crisis,
unlike the previous regime of Slobodan Milosevic.

But it strongly condemned NATO peacekeepers of failing to cut off rebels' weapon
supply and their
intrusions into the territory of the buffer zone.

It also called for a limited return of Yugoslav army troops to Kosovo, as agreed
upon the
UN-approved peace deal for the province, and for the setting up a coordinating
group to better
monitor the conflict near the zone.