Compromise Is Possible, Serbia’s President Says

Serbia is willing to make major compromises and grant rival ethnic Albanians broad self-rule, but it reiterated that it adamantly opposes having NATO troops police a Kosovo agreement, the republic’s president said Monday.

For the first time since a Kosovo peace conference started Feb. 6, Milan Milutinovic indicated that Serbs were willing to give up most of the demands that have stalled the talks--with the exception of NATO peacekeeping troops.

Milutinovic spoke as the Kosovo conference headed toward a fast-approaching deadline, with the United States pressuring the Serbs to make a deal with Kosovo Albanians or prepare to be bombed by North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces.

About 2,000 people have been killed during a year of clashes in Kosovo between ethnic Albanian separatists and Serbian security forces. The province is in southern Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic, and 90% of its 2 million people are ethnic Albanians.

Also Monday, British military vehicles and heavy guns were moved from Germany to Greece for use in a possible NATO intervention in Kosovo, the British army said.

With just five days until a deadline set by the United States and five of its European allies for a deal to be signed, Russian Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov on Monday visited the 14th-century French chateau where the talks are being held.

Russia is pushing as hard as the United States for a resolution of the Kosovo conflict by Saturday. But Moscow opposes the use of NATO airstrikes and is noncommittal on the deployment of international peacekeeping troops.

Ivanov, after meeting with both delegations, told reporters that he was convinced “they realize the importance of the moment.”

NATO already is making plans to send up to 30,000 troops into Kosovo, including nearly 4,000 U.S. troops.

In Serbia on Monday, 33 ethnic Albanians went on trial on charges of “terrorism,” while the government released 40 other Kosovo Albanians detained in connection with a weekend bombing.