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Yugoslav Forces Accuse Ethnic Albanian Rebels of Violating Cease-fire
Yugoslav troops in southern Serbia's buffer zone Saturday accused ethnic Albanian separatists of violating the cease-fire agreement signed on Monday between the Yugoslav military authorities and leaders of the rebels.
The troops charged in a bulletin that the Albanian extremists' repeated armed provocation against the Yugoslav units stationed in the five-kilometer-wide safety zone was aimed at stirring up large- scale armed conflicts.
The situation however did not worsen because the Yugoslav Armed Forces exercised restraint and informed in time the NATO-led peacekeeping forces in Kosovo (KFOR) of the matter, the bulletin noted.
Yugoslav police in the zone killed an ethnic Albanian extremist on Saturday night when they were forced to counterattack a gang of ethnic Albanian rebels, who raided a police post in Presevo, the bulletin said.
Under the NATO's mediation, the Yugoslav military authorities and leaders of ethnic Albanian guerrillas reached a cease-fire deal on Monday, hours after the NATO and Serbia agreed to allow Serbian police and Yugoslav troops to return to the buffer zone on the Kosovo border. Originally Yugoslav police with only light arms were allowed to patrol the buffer zone, set up in 1998 to separate Kosovo and the rest of Serbia.
The NATO-Serbian agreement reduced the pressure on KFOR, particularly as the American troops involved were trying to stop the movement of fighters and supplies into the neighboring country of Macedonia, where ethnic Albanian rebel attacks last week caused fears of a wider Balkan conflict.
The rebels violated the cease-fire agreement just after Ninoslav Krstic, commander of the Yugoslav Armed Forces, made the remarks that the situation in the zone had become peaceful after his troops entered the designated places on Wednesday.
Yugoslavia is formed by the republics of Serbia and Montenegro.
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