A convoy of OSCE vehicles crosses the border, leaving Kosovo for Macedonia RELATED AUDIO Listen to Walker explain his disappointment with the OSCE's mission in Kosovo 319.8xK/30 sec. AIFF or WAV sound

March 20, 1999
Web posted at: 1:08 p.m. EST (1808 GMT)

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (CNN) -- New fighting broke out in Kosovo on Saturday as the looming threat of NATO airstrikes spurred international monitors to evacuate the Serbian province.

Nearly 1,400 monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe left Kosovo early Saturday morning, arriving safely in the Macedonian capital of Skopje. The monitors spent five months overseeing an increasingly brittle cease-fire between Serb forces and ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

"We left behind a very troubled province," said , the OSCE mission chief. "Ultimate success, in the sense of achieving peace, eluded us."

Serb forces on Saturday closed the highway between Pristina, the rebellious province's capital, and the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade.

Hours after the OSCE teams began pulling out of Kosovo, ethnic Albanian rebels attacked Serb police stations in northern Kosovo, where fighting has been intense in recent days. International observers reported Yugoslav troops moving into the area, backed by tanks and armored cars.

About 2,500 villagers were driven from their homes by shelling early Saturday, trudging across snowy hillsides with only the clothes on their backs. Many humanitarian agencies have cut back their staffs in Kosovo due to the threat of airstrikes, leaving the refugees even more vulnerable to cold and hunger.

NATO airstrikes pending

Meanwhile, NATO forces stood poised to strike at Yugoslavia after Serbia and the government in Belgrade rejected a peace agreement that called for an international force to monitor its implementation in Kosovo.

The pact was the subject of two rounds of peace talks in France, which ended Friday with only the ethnic Albanian side agreeing to its terms.

Walker said the OSCE monitors were proud of their peacekeeping efforts in Kosovo, but that "a dramatically different approach" was needed, referring to NATO airstrikes.

"If that is what it takes ... to get Belgrade to change its mind, so be it," Walker said.

But Dennis Sandole, a professor of international relations at George Mason University in Washington, told CNN that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic only stands to gain if NATO unleashes airstrikes.

"While he might lose militarily, he will come a winner," Sandole said, explaining that Milosevic could portray himself to his people as a heroic figure who stood up the West.

Serb and Yugoslav security forces have been battling an independence movement by ethnic Albanian guerrillas in Kosovo for more than a year.

NATO has threatened to launch airstrikes on Yugoslav targets

Meanwhile, the ethnic Albanian delegates who attended the failed Paris peace talks flew to Albania on Saturday rather than back to Kosovo, where their security could not be guaranteed, said a spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry.

The delegates held talks with Albanian President Rexhep Meidani on Saturday after arriving from France, witnesses said.

They were accompanied on the French government flight by Pierre Huntziger, Paris's ambassador to Macedonia and France's special representative for the region.

Correspondents Chris Burns, Chris Black, Matthew Chance andReuters contributed to this report.

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