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NATO Warns Kosovo Albanians Not to Continue Provoking Violence
NATO Tuesday warned ethnic Albanian extremists in Kosovo not to continue provoking violence in and around the Yugoslav province.
NATO Secretary-General George Robertson said that the western military alliance "strongly condemns the continuing acts of violence in Kosovo and southern Serbia and calls on those parties responsible to put an end to it".
The collective warning was issued after NATO foreign ministers met in a special session, called by the U.S. as a get-acquainted session for Secretary of State Colin Powell with his counterparts from NATO countries.
"The NATO foreign ministers expressed their deep concern over the use of the ground safety zone as a safe haven for extremist activities," said Robertson.
A five-kilometer-wide buffer zone was created after the 1999 NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.
Kosovo ethnic Albanian rebels have been making the most of this special zone, in which only lightly armed Serbian police can enter and patrol, to wage a campaign that aims at creating a larger Kosovo if not a larger Albania.
Tuesday's NATO ministerial meeting have decided to send more special NATO representatives to the region, as an effort to defuse the tension, yet did not go as far as announcing the return of some of the buffer zone to the Yugoslav authorities.
Diplomatic sources said that prior to the special meeting, NATO was preparing to return around 300 kilometers of the 400-kilometer buffer zone to the Yugoslav authorities.
Robertson only said in his post-council press briefing that NATO is prepared to implement a phased and conditioned reduction of the ground safety zone, yet did not give the timetable for the move.
When asked to comment on whether the U.S. has started to take the ethnic Albanian extremists as a threat to regional stability, Powell said that they have now become sources of problems.
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