Yugoslavia, Macedonia Call for Peace in Kosovo

Yugoslavia and Macedonia, fearful that Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian separatism will ignite into a cross-border conflict, Sunday called for a peaceful solution to the crisis.

Foreign ministers from the two countries met for three hours near the southern Serbian town of Bujanovac as Serbian forces and ethnic Albanian guerrillas clashed in a renewed outbreak of fighting in nearby Kosovo.

“[Macedonia] only supports a solution that can be reached by peaceful means,” its foreign minister, Blagoj Handziski, told a news conference.

Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic, whose country has launched a crackdown on separatist guerrillas fighting for Kosovo independence, said Belgrade too wanted a peaceful solution.

Any solution, he said, must include respect for human and minority rights.

A huge ethnic Albanian population straddles both countries to the northeast of Albania proper. It comprises about a third of the population of Macedonia, a former Yugoslav republic, and 90% of Kosovo, a province of Serbia.

The international community has worried since the start of the Kosovo conflict that the violence could have a domino effect across the Balkans.

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Support for Kosovo separatism reportedly has been growing among Macedonia’s Albanian community along the mountainous area that borders Kosovo and among ethnic Albanian political parties in Macedonia’s capital, Skopje.

Belgrade media have reported tension among Macedonia’s political parties, with opposition groups demanding that the ruling government do something about separatist supporters in its coalition.

Meanwhile, fighting between ethnic Albanian separatists and Serbian security forces erupted in Kosovo again Sunday, threatening thousands of refugees huddled in the province’s villages, hills and forests.

The key highway leading west from Kosovo’s capital, Pristina, to Pec was closed as Serbian police used heavily armored vehicles in a clash with fighters from the Kosovo Liberation Army fighting for independence.

Serbian artillery fired long-range cannon and mortars near the ethnic Albanian village of Nekovce, where about 5,000 refugees have sheltered.

Kosovo Albanians said the Serbs had launched a large-scale offensive in central Kosovo, including widespread shelling, and were continuing their operations in the west.

The official Yugoslav Tanjug news agency cited Serbian sources as saying Yugoslav army and Serbian police units had been attacked in various places in western Kosovo and two policemen had been killed.