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UN Envoys Calls for Efforts to Prevent Tensions on Kosovo Border
A United Nations envoy urged the Serbian government and the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo (KFOR) to act fast to prevent tensions from worsening on the border, the New York Times newspaper reported Tuesday, December 5.
Eric Morris, who represents the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo, the Yugoslav province, made the appeal Monday on his return from the Presevo valley in southern Serbia.
Albanian militants attacked the Serbian police there 10 days ago and seized control of a five-kilometer-wide buffer zone along Kosovo's eastern boundary, the newspaper said.
The police, meanwhile, reported another attack and a member of President Vojislav Kostunica's Yugoslavia coalition called for the police to use force to rout the militants, the newspaper said.
Morris told reporters in Belgrade: "It is urgent that all the concerned parties, including the Yugoslav Government, act as quickly as possible so that the Presevo region does not get out of hand, because the consequences are potentially very, very great."
On Sunday, Serbian policemen came under mortar attack while on patrol just inside the buffer zone, said Novica Zdravkovic, the regional police chief. No one was injured.
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