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Serbs extend new offer for Kosovo talks

Deserted village
There are few signs of life in the village of Lause  
 
 

In this story:

March 14, 1998
Web posted at: 9:04 p.m. EST (0204 GMT)

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (CNN) -- Serbian officials Saturday extended a new invitation to ethnic Albanian leaders in Kosovo to sit down and talk about the province's future.

In a statement carried on the state-run Tanjug news agency, the Serbian government said it was open "for unconditional dialogue" and said it wanted to settle by "political means all the questions on which depend the human and civil rights of all the citizens of Kosovo."

Tanjug reported that the broad invitation went out to the leaders of nearly every political party and trade union in Kosovo. Also invited were the former communist leaders of the province, who governed Kosovo until the Serbs stripped it of autonomy in 1989. They include Azem Vlasi, who was arrested and jailed for defying Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

But it remains unclear whether the Albanian leaders, who have boycotted two previous negotiating sessions set up by the Serbs, would respond. They are scheduled to meet Sunday to discuss the offer.

Increasing pressure on Albanians to join talks


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The Albanians, who make up 90 percent of the population in Kosovo, are under increasing international pressure to enter into talks with the Serbs. Western powers have said that they will impose new sanctions on the Yugoslav federation if the Serbs don't work for a peaceful political solution to strife in Kosovo.

Serbia and Montenegro are the two republics that make up the Yugoslav federation. Kosovo is a province in southern Serbia.

But Serbian officials have made it clear that they will not consider one key Albanian demand -- outright independence for the province.

Albanians say two shot by Serbian police

The Kosovo Information Center, run by the ethnic Albanians' largest political party, reported Saturday that two Albanians had been shot by Serbian police in the Drenica region, west of the provincial capital of Pristina. There was no independent confirmation of the deaths.

More than 80 people have died in Drenica since Serb police moved against Albanian separatists two weeks ago.

Some residents of villages in Drenica, fearing further Serbian assaults, are spending nights hiding in the woods. Hundreds of refugees, who fled from homes demolished during the crackdown, are trapped behind Serbian police lines, where international humanitarian aid cannot reach them.

A Serbian official in Pristina told CNN that international humanitarian agencies aren't being allowed into the area because one of their vehicles was caught at a checkpoint with weapons.

Make Kosovo a Yugoslav republic?

Though many ethnic Albanians are pushing for independence for Kosovo, Western powers have been cool to the idea, fearing that any change in Balkan borders could trigger a wider war in the region.

Saturday, an elder statesman among the Kosovo Albanians, Mahmut Bakalli, said his people might be satisfied if Kosovo were given status as a republic within the Yugoslav federation.

"Albanians want independence from Serbia's rule, and this is their right," said Bakalli, who once led the province during the era from 1974 to 1989 when it had a degree of autonomy. "But that does not mean changing Yugoslavia's borders, which is neither possible nor necessary."

Bakalli is not affiliated with any of the current ethnic Albanian political parties but has remained an influential power broker behind the scenes.

The idea of making Kosovo a republic dates back to the founding of Yugoslavia in 1944. But Serbs consider the province to be the cradle of their culture and Orthodox religion, and it has remained part of Serbia.

In 1974, Yugoslavia's communist strongman Josip Broz Tito gave Kosovo autonomy, which meant that it while it was still technically part of Serbia, it had equal voting powers in federal bodies.

In 1989, Kosovo was stripped of its autonomous status during the political crisis which led two years later to the secession from Yugoslavia of Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia and Bosnia. Milosevic, now president of Yugoslavia, led Serbia at the time.

Macedonian leader calls for U.S. troops on border

Western officials fear continued unrest in Kosovo could carry over into neighboring countries, particularly Albania and Macedonia, which has a large ethnic Albanian population.

On Saturday, Macedonian President Kiro Gligorov said the best way to protect his country from being pulled into the conflict in Kosovo would be to have U.S. troops stationed along its border. Currently, a lightly armed U.N. force, which includes 300 U.S. soldiers, is stationed in the country.

The German newsmagazine Der Spiegel is reporting that the German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel will ask other European countries to consider sending soldiers to Albania to keep the unrest from spreading there.

Correspondent Richard Blystone and Reuters contributed to this report.

 
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