Another Albanian Is Killed in Kosovo, Reportedly at Protest

Further dampening prospects for a diplomatic solution to the Kosovo crisis, ethnic Albanians blamed Serbian police for another fatal shooting Wednesday even as visiting U.S. diplomats pressed for an end to the violence.

Relatives of 46-year-old Qerim Muriqi say he died of a chest wound after being shot by Serbian police who fired on a crowd at a peaceful demonstration in Pec, 30 miles west of Pristina, the capital of Kosovo, a province of Serbia.

Kosovo’s information minister denied the assault, and police did not confirm it.

The United States and European countries have set today as a deadline for Serbia to withdraw special police from Kosovo and meet other requirements or face toughened international sanctions.

Meanwhile, the top U.S. envoy for the region met Wednesday in Kosovo with mediators who had previously brought the two sides to agreement.

Robert Gelbard met with Vincenzo de Paglia from a Roman Catholic group that mediated a pact on education in Kosovo between Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, now president of Yugoslavia, and ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova in 1996.

Gelbard has said that getting both sides to implement the agreement to bring ethnic Albanian students back to Serbian schools would help reinstate trust.

In Washington, the House passed by a 406-1 vote a nonbinding resolution calling for “an end to the violent repression of the legitimate rights of the people of Kosovo.”

And Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott reiterated, while on a trip to Bulgaria, that Belgrade must “cease its brutal, repressive tactics” and its campaign “for ethnic cleansing and summary executions.”

In an attempt to blunt Western criticism, Serbian President Milan Milutinovic, in a statement carried by state television, said he would guarantee that any outcome of talks with ethnic Albanians would keep Kosovo within Serbia and grant the province “a great degree of self-rule.”