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July 7
- The Russian military air-lift to
Kosovo is in full swing again after a break of one week. The delay followed
a decision taken on NATO's request by Bulgaria, Hungary and Rumania to
close their air space for Russian planes. NATO considered it necessary
to sort out the details of the deployment of Russian peace-keepers in Kosovo
first and then begin a massive air-lift of Russian paratroopers. Russia,
in turn, was dissatisfied over the fact that its contingent had found itself
deployed in two separate areas with a 25-kilometre Italian-controlled sector
in-between. The problems were resolved at talks with NATO officials in
Moscow on Monday. 3600 Russian paratroopers will be deployed in the US,
British, French and German sectors. Along with the air-lift the Russian
contingent will be delivered by sea from Russia's Black Sea ports via Greece.
The first ships are due to set sail later this week.
- UN High Commissioner for Refugees
Mrs. Sadako Ogata urges donor countries to earmark more funds to help repatriating
Kosovo Albanians. Over 600 thousand of them have come back, she said in
Pristina today. This over one half of those who moved to camps in Macedonia
and Albania following the start of NATO's air campaign. Serbs meanwhile
continue to flee their homes in Kosovo, They fear reprisals by the separatist
Kosovo Liberation Army.
- The air-lift between Russia and
Kosovo resumed yesterday after a long break. Several Russian transport
planes with paratroopers and various technical equipment landed on Slatina
airfield in Pristina. The newly arrived paratroopers will prepare to receive
and station the bulk of Russia`s peace-keeping contingent in the American,
British, German and French sectors of KFOR. Most of the servicemen from
Russia will arrive by sea on landing crafts this and next month. The total
strength of the Russian contingent in Kosovo will number 3.600 servicemen.
There will also be several hundred border guards and men of the Interior
Ministry.
- Head of the National Security Council
Vladimir Putin says this country will offer help to both the Albanian and
the Serb communities in Kosovo. Its soldiers there will closely cooperate
with the NATO part of the Kosovo Force and will do everything in their
power to restore peace and stability to the Balkans.
- The leadership of the so-called
Kosovo Liberation Army has refused to recognize fully the legal rights
of the UN Civil Administration in Kosovo. It even threatens to take up
arms again if the UN hampers the advance of the province to independence.
Such statements is the reaction of the Kosovo Liberation Army to the appointment
on July 3rd of Bernard Kushner to the post of head of the UN mission in
Kosovo the task of which is to restore civilian rule in the province. This
has been reported by the ITAR-TASS news agency quoting the "Wall Street
Journal".
July 6
- A jumbo jet with paratroops and
equipment from Pskov in North-western Russia touched down at the airport
of the Kosovo capital Pristina this morning ending a long break in the
airlift of Russian peace-keepers to southern Serbia. Three more ILYUSHIN-76
jets with troops from Pskov and Ivanovo northeast of Moscow are expected
today. Together with Russian soldiers who arrived earlier, the latest arrivals
will prepare encampments and warehouses for the rest of the Russian contingent
of the international Kosovo Force. This country is sending 36 hundred army
troops and several hundred police and border guards to Kosovo. They will
serve in sectors under control by American, British, German and French
military units. Most are expected to reach the Balkans by sea this month
and next. Hungary and Rumania opened their air space for Russian military
overflights after Russian and NATO officers agreed all details of the Russian
role in Kosovo at talks in Moscow on Monday.
- Speaker of the Russian Lower House
Gennadi Seleznev has urged the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe to upgrade itself to a fully operational international body that
is second only to the United Nations in safeguarding stability on the Old
Continent. He was speaking before 54 national delegations at the opening
of the 8th annual session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly in St Petersburg
today. The conflict over Kosovo, he also said, has illustrated grave dangers
to the post-war security arrangements in Europe.
- President Yeltsin has instructed
Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov to work towards full normalization in Yugoslavia
and brace for possible shifts in the situation there. They met in the President's
Kremlin office today. Mr Ivanov said entire South-eastern Europe needs
recovery from destabilization created by the latest NATO war and big powers
including Russia are drafting a comprehensive pact on stability in that
sensitive region. The Kosovo Force, he insisted, must immediately put right
a situation in which many of the Kosovo Serbs have to flee their homes
for fear of reprisals from ethnic Albanian separatists in the province.
The Russian peace-keepers, he said, would orderly liaise in the task with
the NATO part of the international military contingent in Kosovo.
- Experts of the Geneva-based aid
group FOCUS, established by Russia, Austria, Greece and Switzerland, say
the NATO air campaign ruined 350 thousand buildings in Yugoslavia. Over
two thirds of these are in the southern Serbian province of Kosovo. Head
of the Russian side in the group Sergey Shoigu, in charge of tackling emergencies
in this country, accuses NATO of bias in providing aid to refugees from
the conflict. He says NATO relief easily reaches ethnic Albanians camped
in Albania and Macedonia but never trickles through to Serbs and Gypsies
who took refuge in Serbia. This country, he pledges, will continue to help
all people who suffered in the latest Balkan war.
- According to the Interfax news
agency, the first group of Russian paratroopers within the Russian peace-keeping
contingent has left for Kosovo. The Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov
said yesterday that the Moscow meeting between representatives of NATO
and Russia's General Staff had removed all obstacles to the deployment
of the Russian contingent in Kosovo.
- A representative of the Kosovo
force - Lieutenant-Colonel Louis Garneau - has spoken highly of the role
of the Russian peace-keeping contingent in the province. Addressing a news
conference in Pristina he said Russian units in Kosovo had been doing a
good job. According to Colonel Garneau, the KFOR leadership is looking
forward to the arrival of more Russian peace-keepers. The representative
said Russian servicemen would continue to make a considerable contribution
to the KFOR's efforts to guarantee security and stability in the province.
- Contacts between Serb and Albanian
leaders in Kosovo are on the point of being disrupted. The first meeting
between the two sides was organized by the UN civilian mission last week.
Leaders of Kosovo Serbs have accused the Albanian side of going back on
its promises to stop violence against the province's non-Albanian population.
A message to that effect was sent to international representatives in Kosovo
on Monday.
July 5
- This country and NATO are in full
agreement over details of a Russian role in the international military
operation in Kosovo. The announcement came after a round of talks between
Russian and NATO officers in Moscow today. The agency RIA-NOVOSTI quotes
sources in the Defence Ministry as saying the airport in the Kosovo capital
Pristina is ready to receive Russian military flights.
- Several hundred Russian troops
bound for Kosovo and their armoured vehicles have started to embark on
5 landing barges from a pier 15 kilometres outside the Black Sea port of
Tuapse where they arrived this morning by rail. The ships will set sail
to Salonika in northern Greece within a few days from now. From there,
the contingent will proceed by road convoy.
- The president of Austria Thomas
Klestil and its federal chancellor Viktor Klima have requested Russia presidential
envoy in the Balkans Victor Chernomyrdin to have talks with Yugoslav president
Slobodan Milosevic. The idea is to help organize works by Austria and other
Danube countries to clear the river of the remnants of bridges destroyed
in the period of bombings. The inability to use the Danube for navigation
is causing tremendous losses to all the countries on the river's banks.
- The first trainload of armoured
vehicles and servicemen that are part of the Russian peace keeping contingent,
sent to Kosovo, arrived in the Black Sea port-city Tuapse yesterday night.
Now they are to go on board of five landing vessels that will set sail
for a Greek port today or tomorrow. From Greece Russian peacekeepers will
make a forced march to the areas of deployment on their military hardware.
Meanwhile the flight to Kosovo of yet another group of Russian peacekeepers
has been delayed because Hungry, Rumania and Bulgaria have bowed to NATO`s
pressure and refused to give an air corridor to two Russian transport planes.
To settle the difference on the deployment of Russian peacekeepers in the
Serbian province a delegation of the North Atlantic alliance has arrived
in Moscow.
- The United State Administration
has drawn up a refined plan for removing the Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic, from power. According to the report by the American TIME magazine,
the plan is to be carried out by the CIA, diplomats, bankers and propaganda
agencies. Instructions have been given to confiscate Mr Milosevic's money
in foreign bank accounts, recruit Yugoslav authority and opposition officials,
encircle Serbia with radio stations to broadcast pro-western programmes
round the clock. The US State Secretary Madeleine Albright has been charged
with the diplomatic side of the plan.
- Ethnic Albanian terrorists have
brutally butchered 6 Serbs in Istok in north-western Kosovo. A Spanish
patrol accompanied by an official from the UN discovered their charred
bodies in a burnt-down house on Sunday. One of the dead men was decapitated.
All had apparently been shot before the house was set on fire. The Spanish
soldiers arrived at the scene after receiving a plea for help. Unfortunately
they were too late. Gangs of ethnic Albanians are looting and torching
Serb houses all around and Spanish troops in control of the area appear
powerless to stop them.
July 4
- Russia most probably will be unable
to sent additional peacekeeping units to Kosovo, today. According to a
representative of the White House, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania, on the
insistence of the United States and NATO have refused to give an air corridor
to Russia until a Russian military delegation and NATO settle finally remaining
disputed questions at the talks now going on in Brussels. Russian military
sources have confirmed that the departure of two military-transport planes
with peace keepers to Kosovo planned for this morning is being delayed
indefinitely.
- A sapper of the KFOR German contingent
and three Albanian peasants were wounded when a charge found in the field,
three kilometers from Prizren, in Kosovo - exploded. One of the peasants
rushed ahead of the sapper and himself lifted the dangerous object which
went off in his hands. The wounded men were brought to the city hospital.
- The Albanian fighters from the
so-called "Kosovo Liberation Army" continue to crudely violate
the agreements with KFOR. According to a Spanish newspaper "Mundo",
they have actually taken under their own control the main cities in Kosovo
and appointed their representatives to the posts of mayors and to other
key offices. They also carry out the functions of the policemen. The Kosovo
Liberation Army says it does that because it is necessary to normalize
the life of the Albanian residents. As for the United Nations it goes slow
in forming its own temporary administration. Such a situation causes concern
among the small group of Serbs that has remained in Kosovo.
- The mayors of 14 cities in the
countries of East and South Europe who met in Athens, have called for setting
up a special fund to restore Yugoslavia's facilities destroyed by NATO
air strikes. In a joint statement they pointed out that the damage done
exceeds 50 billion dollars. It was likewise decided that the mayors of
Athens, Kiev and Sofia will visit the region to prepare a report on the
restoration work that has to be done. The report will be sent to the European
Union, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and to the
UN secretary general.
July 3
- The French Prime-Minister Lionel
Jospin ended his two-day official visit to Russia on yesterday night. On
the last day of his stay in Moscow he met with President Boris Yeltsin.
And according to the Russian presidential aide Sergey Prikhodko, who attended
the meeting, the two man mostly discussed the situation in Kosovo, including
interaction of the Russian and French peacekeepers in the Serbian province.
They also touched on bilateral relations. In the course of the visit Lionel
Jospin also met his Russian counterpart Sergey Stepashin and attended a
meeting of the inter governmental commission on economic and technological
cooperation.
- President Boris Yeltsin has said
that Russia's constructive foreign policy is the chief element of global
stability. Addressing top military commanders in the Kremlin yesterday,
Mr Yeltsin stressed that Russia had played a key role in the settlement
of the Kosovo crisis and that its prominent contribution towards stopping
NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia attested to its growing influence
in the worlds.
- The first trainload of Russian
paratroopers has left base near the central Russian city of Tula for port
city of Novorossiysk where the Russian peacekeepers will be expected to
board Black Sea Fleet vessels which will take them to Greece and on to
Kosovo. Russian military sources say it will take the 3600 strong Russian
battalion 40 to 45 days to reach Kosovo. Even though they will be positioned
in areas under US, British, French and German control, the Russians will
receive political and military orders from Moscow. Several hundred Russian
peacekeepers have been flown over to Kosovo. They retain control of the
Pristina airport and are making the necessary moves to ready it for the
reception of planes of other nations. The airport is due to open tomorrow.
The Ukrainian lawmakers have, in the meantime, endorsed plans to send 1400
Ukrainian peacemakers to Kosovo.
- Russia and Greece will coordinate
efforts to reconstruct the Balkans. The two countries' first deputy Foreign
Ministers reached agreement on carrying out joint projects in power production,
communications and infrastructure at the Greek-Russian consultations that
drew to a close in Athens yesterday. The parties to the consultations discussed
the situation in the Balkans, in general, and in Yugoslavia and Kosovo,
and also in Cyprus, in particular, and noted the similarity or full coincidence
of their positions on the whole range of issues discussed.
- Finland as the European Unions's
current chaircountry will press for the removal of economic sanctions on
Yugoslavia. This has come in a statement by a spokesman for the Finnish
Foreign Ministry, who's stressed that this applies above all to the oil
and air communication embargoes, which hit hardest the people of Serbia.
According to the Finnish official, sanctions should be lifted step by step
and only if fully approved by the international community. Finland has
the EU rotating presidency from July 1st to the end of the year.
July 2
- President Boris Yeltsin and French
prime minister Lionel Jospin met in the Moscow Kremlin Friday to discuss
joint efforts in the Kosovo peacekeeping operation. Yeltsin said, before
the talks, the war action at the Balkans made it possible for Russia to
learn a lesson for the coordination of its moves on the international arena
and in bilateral relations with France. Jospin said, in turn, that the
Kosovo crisis should not set a rule, and that his country would be paying
more attention to the United Nation peacemaking role. Yeltsin and Jospin
are confident that cooperation between the Russian and French peacemakers
will set an example to other nations.
- The first trainload of Russian
paratroopers has left base near the central Russian city of Tula for port
city of Novorossiysk where the Russian peacekeepers will be expected to
board Black See Fleet vessels which will take them to Greece and on to
Kosovo. Russian military sources say it will take the 3600 strong Russian
battalion 40 to 45 days to reach Kosovo. Even though they will be positioned
in areas under US, British, French and German control, the Russians will
receive political and military orders from Moscow. Several hundred Russian
peacekeepers have been flown over to Kosovo. They retain control of the
Pristina airport and are making the necessary moves so as to make the airport
ready for the reception of planes of other nations. The airport is due
to open Sunday. The Ukrainian lawmakers have, in the meantime, endorsed
plans to send 1400 Ukrainian peacemakers to Kosovo.
- An emissary of the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees Dennis McNamara admits that the international
peacekeepers are unable to protect ethnic Serbs, gypsies and other ethnic
minorities from ethnic Albanians, in Kosovo. McNamara learned, while visiting
Kosovo, that ethnic Albanians looted and put on fire houses that belonged
to ethnic Serbs. McNamara says 50,000 to 70,000 Serbs have fled Kosovo
in the past two weeks. Belgrade urged the international peacekeeping contingent
Thursday to insure the safety of every resident of Kosovo, regardless of
his or her ethnic roots.
- What NATO planes did in Kosovo
proves to be hardly effective. Colonel Geoffrey Shlosser who is commanding
a US unit in Kosovo says it is next to impossible to find a Yugoslav tank
or a Yugoslav artillery piece destroyed in an Allied air raid, in that
province. Both Shlosser and foreign media people say there are many army
hardware dummies in Kosovo. The North Atlantic Alliance assumed it had
destroyed up to 40 percent of the Yugoslav tanks, artillery pieces and
mechanized infantry combat vehicles, but it had destroyed was, in fact,
dummy hardware.
- Russia begins sending the bulk
of its peace-keeping contingent to Kosovo July 2nd. A Tula paratroops division
will head to the Black sea port of Tuapse by rail and from there it sails
to Katerini, Greece July 6th. There the troops will disembark from the
landing crafts and head to Kosovo on armoured troops carriers and other
vehicles. The paratroopers from Tula are expected to arrive in Kosovo on
July 16th. The ITAR-TASS news agency has learned from sources at Russia's
paratroops headquarters that the military hardware and the units of two
more Russian paratroops divisions from - Pskov and Ivanovo - will be sent
to Kosovo by sea.
- The commander of Russia's contingent
in Kosovo, general Victor Zavarsin has expressed deep concern over the
slow way the fighters of the Kosovo Liberation Army are being disarmed.
In an interview for the Russian news agency Novosti, given at the Slatina
airport in Pristina where the advanced group of Russian peace-keepers are
located, the general said that at his recent meeting with the commander
of NATO forces in Kosovo general Michael Jackson he raised the question
of fighters of the Kosovo Liberation army having a big amount of arms which
are used for looting and bandit attacks.
- The government of Yugoslavia has
urged the peace-keeping forces in Kosovo to ensure the safety of the non-Albanian
population in that Serbian province. At the cabinet meeting in Belgrade
on Thursday the need was stressed to put an end to terror on the part of
the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army. Some 70.000 Serbs and gypsies had
fled from the province under pressure of the Albanian extremists. Yugoslavia's
Union of Teachers has described as an unprecedented act of vandalism in
the history of mankind - driving away from the Pristina university more
than two thousand professors, and assistants and 18.000 student. This was
done by Albanian extremists. In a statement circulated in Belgrade on Thursday
the union placed the blame for such genocide on science - first of all
on the United States and other countries of the West whose contingents
are in Kosovo and fail to do anything to stop such acts on the part of
the Kosovo Liberation Army.
- Russia's President Boris Yeltsin
meets July 2nd with high-ranking officials of the Defence ministry. Attention
will be given to the participation of Russian servicemen in the peacekeeping
operation in Kosovo.
- Russia's President Boris Yeltsin
and Prime-Minister of France Lionel Jospin discussed in the Kremlin cooperation
of Russian and French peace-.keepers in Kosovo July 2nd. A representative
of the President's administration told newsmen that before the talks started,
Boris Yeltsin said NATO's action in the Balkans has effected Russian-French
relations. He also stressed that there is a possibility to draw lessons
from the Kosovo crisis for both further cooperation of Russia and France
in international affairs and bilateral cooperation. The French Prime-Minister
on his part pointed out that the Kosovo precedent shouldn't be a rule.
He said France will attribute much importance to the role of the United
Nations in settling conflicts. Both Boris Yeltsin and Lionel Jospin expressed
firm belief that cooperation of military peace-keepers of the two countries
in Kosovo would be a model one.
July 1
- Sergey Stepashin was speaking at
the economic summit of Central and East European countries, currently under
way in Salzburg, Austria, on Thursday. On the situation in Kosovo the Russian
Prime-Minister said that humanitarian and economic aid should be given
to the destroyed Yugoslavia irrespective of whether one likes or dislikes
Milosevic. The Russian Prime-Minister said that now that humanity was on
the threshold of another millenium, a new Europe should be built, one that
would have no dividing lines, whether economic, military or ethnic.
- A Russian military delegation under
Vice-Admiral Valentin Kuznetsov, has ended three-day talks at the headquarters
of NATO's commander-in-chief in Europe. According to Valentin Kuznetsov,
the parties to the talks agreed most issues relating to the participation
of the Russian contingent in the international force operation in Kosovo.
Another round of talks between the Russian and NATO military will take
place at the NATO headquarters in 10 days.
- In the past 24 hours the portcity
Bari, in Southern Italy, has seen the arrival of great numbers of Kosovo
gypsies. Several fishing vessels called at the port with more than a thousand
gypsies on board, the gypsies that came to Italy in a bid to escape the
campaign of terror launched by the Kosovo Liberation Army fighters. Last
night one vessel brought to Bari a whole 510 gypsies, - men, women and
children.
- The Russian Foreign Minister Igor
Ivanov has called for promoting trust and cooperation in the Balkans. Mr.
Ivanov believes that this is what Stability Pact for South Western Europe
is meant for and that Russia should take an active part in it. In an interview
with the Moscow-based Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper Mr. Ivanov pointed
out that in view of the political, economic and military aspects of the
settlement Russia should demonstrate a comprehensive approach towards the
Balkans with both its foreign and domestic interests viewed as a priority.
Among other tasks facing the Balkans settlement Mr. Ivanov attached primary
importance to preserving the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Yugoslavia
and creating safety guarantees for all people living in Kosovo. As for
NATO's recent bombing campaign in the region the minister pointed out that
that had been an attempt to impose the alliance's right to a unilateral
use of force whenever it considered necessary. Russia, the foreign minister
said, would have to overcome a lot of difficulties to promote its concept
of a multipolar world.
- The Defense Ministry says Russian
technicians at the Pristina airport need two more days to resurrect the
facility from destruction wreaked on it by NATO bombs. The airlift of Russian
peace-keeping troops to Kosovo may resume as early as Saturday, officials
believe. The airport is currently in charge of an advance party of around
250 Russian paratroopers and technical experts. The Russian military is
considering a range of logistical options for its operation in Kosovo.
All men and most of the weaponry will go there by air. The heaviest pieces
of equipment, including part of the armor, will reach the region by sea
and by rail.
- Greece has allowed this country
to use its ports on the coast of the Aegean Sea for disembarking troops
and weaponry for the Russian operation in Kosovo. A Greek officer who made
the announcement would not give details saying talks with the Russian side
were not over yet. NATO extensively uses the northern Greek port of Salonika
for bringing troops and equipment to southern Serbia.
- Kosovo is on the verge of a humanitarian
disaster, worse than the one which is officially considered to prompt NATO's
bombardments of Yugoslavia. The opinion belongs to the head of the Ethnic
and Political Conflicts Department of the Institute of Europe of the Russian
Academy of Sciences Pavel Kandel. In an interview with the RIA Novosti
news agency Mr. Kandel said that what we now witness is, in fact, the genocide
of Serbs on the part of militants from the Kosovo Liberation Army. In his
words, the only guarantee of security for the Serbs could be granting Russian
peace-keepers their own sector in Kosovo where all non-Albanian population
of the province could concentrate.
June 30
- The Russian Foreign Minister Igor
Ivanov has called for promoting trust and cooperation in the Balkans. Mr.
Ivanov believes that this is what Stability Pact for South Western Europe
is meant for and that Russia should take an active part in it. In an interview
with the Moscow-based Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper Mr. Ivanov pointed
out that in view of the political, economic and military aspects of the
settlement Russia should demonstrate a comprehensive approach towards the
Balkans with both its foreign and domestic interests viewed as a priority.
Among other tasks facing the Balkans settlement Mr. Ivanov attached primary
importance to preserving the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Yugoslavia
and creating safety guarantees for all people living in Kosovo. As for
NATO's recent bombing campaign in the region the minister pointed out that
that had been an attempt to impose the alliance's right to a unilateral
use of force whenever it considered necessary. Russia, the foreign minister
said, would have to overcome a lot of difficulties to promote its concept
of a multipolar world.
- The Defense Ministry says Russian
technicians at the Pristina airport need two more days to resurrect the
facility from destruction wreaked on it by NATO bombs. The airlift of Russian
peace-keeping troops to Kosovo may resume as early as Saturday, officials
believe. The airport is currently in charge of an advance party of around
250 Russian paratroopers and technical experts. The Russian military is
considering a range of logistical options for its operation in Kosovo.
All men and most of the weaponry will go there by air. The heaviest pieces
of equipment, including part of the armor, will reach the region by sea
and by rail.
- Greece has allowed this country
to use its ports on the coast of the Aegean Sea for disembarking troops
and weaponry for the Russian operation in Kosovo. A Greek officer who made
the announcement would not give details saying talks with the Russian side
were not over yet. NATO extensively uses the northern Greek port of Salonika
for bringing troops and equipment to southern Serbia.
- Kosovo is on the verge of a humanitarian
disaster, worse than the one which is officially considered to prompt NATO's
bombardments of Yugoslavia. The opinion belongs to the head of the Ethnic
and Political Conflicts Department of the Institute of Europe of the Russian
Academy of Sciences Pavel Kandel. In an interview with the RIA Novosti
news agency Mr. Kandel said that what we now witness is, in fact, the genocide
of Serbs on the part of militants from the Kosovo Liberation Army. In his
words, the only guarantee of security for the Serbs could be granting Russian
peace-keepers their own sector in Kosovo where all non-Albanian population
of the province could concentrate.
- The commander of NATO's forces
in Kosovo, general Michael Jackson has said the disarming of the Kosovo
Liberation army goes on as planned. Speaking at a news conference in Pristina
on Tuesday, the British general expressed firm belief that the Kosovo Liberation
army would carry out the agreement on demilitarisation signed last week.
Meanwhile, certain field commanders of the Kosovo Liberation army say they
will uphold independence with arms in hand.
- Former vice-premier of Yugoslavia,
and one of the leaders of the opposition Vuk Drajkovic has accused the
major countries of the West of failing to oppose ethnic cleansing in Kosovo
aimed against the Serbs. Speaking in Belgrade on Tuesday, he said NATO
forces in Kosovo are watching how the Albanians are killing the Serbs,
setting their houses on fire and plundering them. And do nothing to stop
that. He proposed returning temporarily part of the Yugoslav troops and
police to Kosovo.
- The situation remains tense in
the sector of the Serbian province of Kosovo which is under the control
of the German contingent. This was announced in Bonn by the state secretary
of the defense ministry of the Federal Republic of Germany Peter Vihert.
A curfew has been in effect there since Monday. And additional 600 German
servicemen will be sent to ensure safety in the city of Prizren and its
outskirts. The Itar-Tass news agency quotes the German official as saying
that the main problem are Albanian looters who plunder the homes of the
Serbs and send everything to Albania. Vihert also added that the Serbian
population continues to stream out of Kosovo. According to his information
21 000 Serbs have fled to Montenegro and 50 000 to Serbia.
- The president of Yugoslavia Slobodan
Milosevic has said that it is very important for the country at present
to carry out social reforms and develop a market economy. He spoke at a
meeting of the leadership of the Republic of Yugoslavia and Serbia in Belgrade
on Tuesday evening. Milosevic said that all those who lost their homes
as a result of hostilities will receive new houses or apartments by November
of this year. While the meeting was being held in Belgrade, many thousands
of people took part in a manifestation in Chachac demanding the resignation
of Milosevic.
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