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Serb troops to control Kosovo zone

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- A plan which will see Serb forces take control of a tense area on the Kosovo border has been agreed with Yugoslavia.

But NATO said Yugoslav troops would not be allowed to use armoured personnel carriers in the Presevo Valley buffer zone, in which ethnic Albanian rebels have launched attacks.

Yugoslavia said the condition made it risky to deploy its army and police, who have lost 17 men killed in the past year. It said NATO-led KFOR troops regularly travel in bullet-and-grenade proof vehicles.

NATO remains confident that it can broker a deal to end fighting between ethnic Albanian rebels and Yugoslav security forces along the Kosovo border with Kosovo.

Leaders of the ethnic Albanians have so far rejected the ceasefire plan because Yugoslav troops would be allowed in the buffer zone, but they are expected to meet NATO chiefs on Monday to discuss it further.

Meanwhile, Russia's Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov has announced that he will visit Yugoslavia and Macedonia from March 18-20 to try to help defuse tensions in the region.

NATO's special envoy Peter Feith spent the weekend in separate talks with a delegation from Serbia and a group of ethnic Albanians.

The Western alliance wants to end the violence which has spread out of Kosovo into Serbia proper and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Feith said on Monday he remained optimistic he could reach an agreement with the rebels.

"They are consulting their commanders and their leadership and we hope to be in contact with them a little bit later today," he said.

Russia's Ivanov will visit Yugoslavia's capital Belgrade, Kosovo and Macedonia during his visit which Russia's ITAR-Tass news agency says is being made at the request of President Vladimir Putin.

Russia has criticised ethnic Albanian rebels from Kosovo over recent violence on the border with Macedonia, which had previously avoided the bloodshed of its neighbours.

The Presevo Valley rebels, numbering several hundreds, are armed with automatic weapons, heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars.

In the first stage of a "phased and conditioned" return to a no-go border zone imposed by NATO in 1999, a number of Yugoslav Army frontier guards and Serbian Interior Ministry police will enter a square of Serbian land five km (three miles) long by five km wide where the valley meets the Macedonian border.

NATO has said a ceasefire would be an important but not imperative condition for the operation.

General Carlo Cabigiosu, commander of KFOR, announced an accord with Yugoslav officials in the border village of Merdare on Monday to let Serb forces back into the 25 square km area "in the next few days."

Cabigiosu told the Corriere della Sera newspaper: "There are both military and ethical limits.

"However, we have demanded that they do not occupy houses, do not enter villages, do not receive backing from armoured cars or use rocket launchers and anti-tank weapons.

"On the other hand, we have allowed them to use mortars and they will also be allowed to intervene, in coordination with our command, with artillery from behind their lines. Finally, there will be no helicopters and above all no mines."

Cabigiosu said exchanges of fire could be foreseen but he hoped the Serb response would be proportionate.

But former Yugoslav Army commander Momcilo Perisic, now Serbian deputy premier, said: "The Yugoslav Army will be in great danger since it is not allowed to enter the area with heavy arms and armoured cars.

"I do not understand why the international community has not allowed this since its own troops in Kosovo are all in armoured cars."

Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic also criticised the geographical limits of the return permitted by NATO, which will put Serb troops and police between two hostile forces.

"On one side there will be Albanians from Kosovo, on the other Albanians from Macedonia," he was quoted as saying.

Perisic told Blic newspaper he was concerned that the rebels could deliberately attack Yugoslav forces simply to provoke conflict.

The Associated Press & Reuters contributed to this report.