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NATO Says Serbian Pullback Precondition for Buffer Zone Cut
NATO said Wednesday that Serbia must pull back some security forces in the Presevo Valley before NATO can begin its promised phased reduction of the southern Serbian buffer zone bordering Kosovo.
NATO Secretary-General George Robertson said NATO ambassadors held a detailed discussion on the sequencing and conditions for the move, which the allies insist must not lead to further violence.
Cutting the size of the buffer zone -- declared a no-go area for Serbian forces by NATO in June 1999 -- is key to defusing a mounting conflict involving ethnic Albanian separatist guerrillas who use the zone as a safe haven.
Robertson said a revised Serbian peace plan submitted to NATO Tuesday by Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic did not contain a timetable for reducing the Yugoslav Army presence and other key confidence-building measures to reassure ethnic Albanian civilians of the region.
A NATO mission to the area, led by Robertson's envoy Pieter Feith, was seeking to clarify the revised Serbian plan.
Meanwhile, heavy shooting reportedly erupted in southern Serbia between ethnic Albanian rebels and Serbian security forces Wednesday, ahead of scheduled talks between NATO and Serbian officials on the narrowing of the buffer zone.
The Serbian government-run media center in Bujanovac, a town on the edge of the three-mile-wide zone in southern Serbia, said at least one Serbian policeman was injured during the shooting.
Mortar and machine-gun bursts echoed in Bujanovac from the neighboring ethnic Albanian strongholds of Lucane and Trnovac. People gathered on the streets in panic hours before a NATO delegation was to arrive in Bujanovac.
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