Subject: Yugoslav parliament asks UN to end attacks in Kosovo buffer zone
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 11:20:12 PST
From: C-afp@... (AFP)
Organization: Copyright 2000 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
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BELGRADE, Dec 28 (AFP) - The Yugoslav parliament asked the
United Nations Thursday to do all it can to end Albanian guerrilla
attacks in a buffer zone near Kosovo.
Deputies in the 138-seat Chamber of Citizens lower house of
parliament adopted a statement urging the UN to ensure the
withdrawal of the fighters from the five-kilometer (three-mile) zone
set up under a 1999 NATO accord with Belgrade.
The vote in the lower house came a day after the 40-seat Chamber
of Republics upper house passed the declaration drafted by the
government earlier in the week.
The statement requests that "the UN Security Council take
measures as soon as possible for the urgent withdrawal of Albanian
terrorists from the security zone."
"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," the
statement said.
Addressing parliament, Yugoslav Prime Minister Zoran Zizic said
he was in favor of abolishing the buffer zone altogether.
Zizic warned "there is still room for diplomacy unless the
international community confirms that military action in the
security zone is the only solution" to the crisis.
Belgrade has repeatedly warned that it will take the situation
into its own hands if the international community fails to act to
stop the violence in the zone near Kosovo's boundary with Serbia.
Ethnic Albanian guerrillas of the Liberation Army of Presevo,
Bujanovac and Medvedja (UCPMB) have gained control of several
villages and key areas in the buffer zone as part of a campaign to
unite the sector with Kosovo.
Under an accord reached between Belgrade and NATO to end the
Kosovo war in June 1999, only lightly-armed Serbian police are
allowed to patrol the zone, making them vulnerable to attacks.
The peacekeepers of the NATO-led Kosovo force (KFOR) and the
United Nations mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) "are directly responsible
for armed intrusions by the Albanian terrorists in the zone," the
Yugoslav statement said.
Yugoslavia "will never, and under no conditions, be deprived of
part of its territory," it added.
On Monday, Yugoslavia's Supreme Defense Council indicated it
would also ask the UN Security Council to modify the agreement on
the buffer zone because of the recent violence.
Yugoslav officials have suggested that the demilitarized zone
could be narrowed.
The statement called for a limited return of Yugoslav army
troops to Kosovo, as agreed upon in the UN-approved peace deal for
the province, and for setting up a coordinating group to better
monitor the conflict near the zone.
On December 19, the UN Security Council condemned the
separatists and demanded their withdrawal from the zone, following
calls from Belgrade calls to end the rebel attacks in which several
Serbian police have been killed since mid-1999.