Belgrade has hardened its line on ethnic Albanian extremists in Kosovo, issuing a warning to NATO that it would take its own action if the Alliance did not respond effectively.
In a letter to NATO Secretary-general George Robertson released late Sunday, Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic called on the alliance and multinational peacekeepers in Kosovo to take concrete measures to end violence.
If this was not done, "Yugoslavia will be obliged to assume its responsibilities and proceed to resolve the problem in an appropriate manner."
President Vojislav Kostunica announced that Yugoslavia's leadership had agreed on selective measures in its fight against terrorism, just hour's after Sunday's death of three police officers killed by anti-tank mines in southern Serbia.
Belgrade says the deaths of the officers while patrolling in their car was caused by what it called "terrorists" of the self-styled Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac (UCPMB).
Militants control more than 200 square kilometres (approximately 70 square miles) of the area, situated around a buffer zone separating UN-administered Kosov with southern Serbia.
The police killings occurred after a remote-controlled bomb destroyed against a bus carrying Serbs inside Kosovo on Friday. Seven died and 43 were injured.
Yugoslavia holds ethnic Albanian extremists responsible for both incidents, saying Kosovo Albanians have been constantly supplying arms and ammunition to the UCPMB deployed in a security zone set up by NATO in June 1999.
Svilanovic reiterated Yugoslav demands for the reduction or abolition of this zone, set up to keep Yugoslav security forces under former hardline leader Slobodan Milosevic away from the NATO-led KFOR peace force.
The new Belgrade government maintains the security strip been made redundant by the arrival in power of Milosevic's moderate successor Vojislav Kostunica.
The UCPMB has managed to deploy without much resistance in the zone, which is demilitarised for a depth of five kilometres (three miles) around the Kosovo border.
Only lightly armed local Serb police are permitted to patrol it.
Svilanovic called on NATO to provide effective measures to stop the flow of arms to ethnic Albanian militants.
Nebojsa Covic, deputy prime minister of Serbia, said decisions had to be taken quickly. "As soon as decisions have been applied, we will certainly no longer stop," he warned.
The Belgrade newspaper Politika on Monday accused Albanian militants of keeping up tensions to prevent Yugoslavia from implementing its own plan to resolve the crisis in southern Serbia and open negotiations with moderate ethnic Albanians.
"Mines against negotiations," its headline read, saying the "latest incidents confirm that KFOR has no control over Albanian extremists."
But the paper said the Yugoslav government did not wish to abandon ts peace plan, the outlines of which was approved last week by NATO and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
Kosovo Albanian leaders were scheduled to present their own peace proposals shortly. They are seeking autonomous status for Kosovo and UCPMB participation in negotiations. Belgrade has rejected both demands.
Kostunica said in a TV address on Sunday: "A whole range of measures for protection against terrorism has been agreed, which will, as until now, be selective and directed exclusively to the fight against organisers and those who have committed terrorist actions."
However, Yugoslavia would remain "persistent in its peaceful policy and launch even more energetic diplomatic action to solve problems in southern Serbia and Kosovo by negotiations," he said – BELGRADE (AFP)
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