Kosovo Clashes--and Negotiations--Continue

Even as tense diplomatic moves over Kosovo continued, international monitors reported new clashes Monday in the village of Kacanik near the province’s border with Macedonia.

At least one ethnic Albanian fighter was killed and four others wounded, and there was an unspecified number of casualties among Serbian security forces, the rebel Kosova Press news agency reported. Kosovo is a province of Serbia, one of two republics that remain of the Yugoslav federation.

Meanwhile, the Clinton administration’s goal of winning support of Kosovo Albanians for a six-nation peace plan advanced slightly Monday as major rebel military leaders gave their blessing, the State Department announced.

And Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has decided to send Ambassador Richard Holbrooke to the Yugoslav and Serbian capital, Belgrade, to press Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to accept the peace plan.

State Department spokesman James P. Rubin, mindful that a Kosovo Albanian signature on the peace plan promised for Sunday never materialized, would not characterize the decision by the KLA general staff to approve the plan as a breakthrough.