http://www.centraleurope.com/yugoslaviatoday/news.php3?id=234098&section=default

KFOR Raises Prospect of Reviewing Belgrade Pact

PRISTINA, Dec 22, 2000 -- (Reuters) The commander of NATO-led forces in
Kosovo raised the prospect on Thursday that an accord which keeps Yugoslav
military forces out of a buffer zone next to the province could soon be
reviewed.

Italian Lieutenant General Carlo Cabigiosu told Reuters the opportunity could
come after Saturday's Serbian general election, which is widely expected to mark
a major victory for reformers backing new Yugoslav President Vojislav
Kostunica.

Under Kostunica, Belgrade has been pushing hard recently for changes to the
Military Technical Agreement so that its forces could tackle ethnic Albanian
guerrillas in the five km (three mile) wide buffer zone along the Serbian side
of the
border.

Last year NATO forced Yugoslavia, then under President Slobodan Milosevic,
to sign the agreement to end the alliance's 11-week bombing campaign aimed at
driving Yugoslav forces out of Kosovo in order to protect the ethnic Albanian
majority there.

ENEMIES FOREVER?

"Why should we treat them as enemies forever?" Cabigiosu said of the Serbs.
"We soon have the opportunity to review those treaties like the Military
Technical
Agreement."

NATO officials have previously said there were no plans to change the pact but
they have strongly denounced the guerrillas and praised Kostunica, who replaced
Milosevic in October after a mass uprising, for acting with restraint.

In a meeting unthinkable under Milosevic, Cabigiosu went to Serbia on
Wednesday to see Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic, in a town near
what is known as the ground safety zone, to discuss how to deal with the
guerrillas.

"The main aim of my meeting was to restrain any military action in the ground
safety zone...leading to armed confrontation," Cabigiosu said in an interview.

The commander of the KFOR peacekeeping force said he had asked Serbian
authorities to present him with a proposal on how to deal with problems in the
buffer zone.

The situation there became a serious security issue late last month when four
Serbian policemen were killed in clashes with ethnic Albanian guerrillas.

The guerrillas, who call themselves the Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac
Liberation Army, say they are trying to protect the large ethnic Albanian
community in the Presevo Valley of southern Serbia from police persecution.

Belgrade insists they are separatists intent on joining the area to Kosovo.

Cabigiosu made clear he expected the Serbs to ask for changes to the technical
agreement.

Kostunica suggested this week that the zone, on the Serbian side of the
boundary,
should be narrowed from five to one or two km. Other Serb leaders have
proposed suspending the agreement for a short time to allow in their forces.

"We will be asked to exchange the existing limitations of the military technical
agreement or (for) a space concession of the existing geography," Cabigiosu
said.

"We can examine that, but this is a project, not something that has been
negotiated or discussed."