Fighting spreads in Kosovo despite cease-fire warnings

KLA soldiers on guard in Bukos

February 27, 1999
Web posted at: 11:13 a.m. EST (1613 GMT)

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (CNN) -- Fresh fighting between Serb and ethnic Albanian forces was reported in the northern part of Kosovo on Saturday, following other skirmishes in the south, despite NATO warnings for the two sides to adhere to a cease-fire while peace talks over the embattled Serb province are in recess.

William Walker, the head of Kosovo monitors for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said a cease-fire was "nonexistent," after international mediators gave the two sides until mid-March to consider the terms of a proposed peace plan.

"We thought we were just going to be sort of determining whether the two sides were in compliance with the cease-fire ... but now we have found ourselves a lot of times trying to stop them from going into non-compliance, sometimes successfully, sometimes less successfully," Walker said.

Yugoslav troops have harassed Walker's monitors in recent weeks, most recently stopping 21 monitors at the Macedonian border on Thursday. Citing diplomatic immunity, the monitors refused to allow troops to search their vehicles.

The troops held the monitors for nearly 24 hours, releasing them Friday only after searching their vehicles by force.

Serb troop movements

Serb troops have been conducting "winter field exercises" for the past few days in the Vucitrn area, 40 kilometers (25 miles) northwest of Pristina. The maneuvers prompted international fears that the Serbs may be planning a major offensive against the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

Fighting has also been prevalent in the south of Kosovo, Walker said. Several hundred ethnic Albanians have fled their homes in villages near the Macedonian border, and fighting was reported along the road to Kosovo's second-largest city, Prizren.

Four people -- all ethnic Albanians -- were reported killed in Friday's fighting, and at least eight were wounded.

Fighting in Kosovo flared a year ago when Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic began a crackdown on an ethnic Albanian insurgency aimed at independence for the southern province of Serbia. Kosovo's population is 90 percent ethnic Albanian.

Peace talks in France -- held under the threat of NATO air strikes -- ended inconclusively Tuesday, but both sides were to come back to the negotiating table in mid-March.

The talks bogged down over Albanian insistence on independence and not simple autonomy, and Serb refusal to allow NATO ground troops to enforce any agreement.

Reuters contributed to this report.