Serbian Forces Break Separatists’ Siege of Town in Kosovo

With U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke in Belgrade, the Yugoslav capital, trying to broker a cease-fire, Serbian forces on Friday broke a two-week rebel siege in the secessionist Kosovo province, freeing scores of Serbian villages and police officers.

Serbian police entered Kijevo shortly after dawn, breaking the ethnic Albanian rebels’ hold on the town and fulfilling what was believed to be Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic’s remaining goal in his latest crackdown on Kosovo.

Hours after the village was retaken by the Serbs, Holbrooke arrived in Belgrade, where he began talks with Milosevic aimed at producing a cease-fire.

Holbrooke, nominated to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, had said that the standoff between Serbs and Albanians in Kijevo made the village the “most dangerous place in Europe,” a flash point for a wider Balkan war.

The Serbs’ retaking of the town, which freed 100 Serbian villagers and 50 police officers held by the rebels, could signal a turning point, allowing the stalled negotiations to go forward.

The separatists want independence for Kosovo, a province in southern Serbia where ethnic Albanians make up 90% of the population. Serbia is the larger of two republics remaining in Yugoslavia.

Late Friday, both sides reported fighting around Kijevo, 15 miles west of the provincial capital, Pristina, but accounts of casualties were conflicting. Journalists were not allowed into the area.

Serbian forces were seeking to push the Kosovo Liberation Army rebels as far west as possible after ending their siege of Kijevo, Serbian police said.

Hundreds of people have died in Kosovo since Serbian forces stepped up efforts to crush militant resistance in late February.

On the eve of Holbrooke’s visit, Milosevic denied any government repression in Kosovo and offered to restore the autonomy he revoked in 1989 on grounds of protecting the Serbian minority.

Holbrooke is pressing for a cease-fire before trying to get Milosevic to withdraw his forces. But he and other Western officials insist that Kosovo should not be allowed independence.