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NATO Considers Deploying Troops in Southern Serbia
France said Thursday that NATO is considering deploying troops in the Presevo region in southern Serbia where ethnic Albanian separatists are launching a guerrilla war against Serbian police.
Assistant spokesman of the French Foreign Ministry, Bernard Valero, said that the NATO allies are discussing the necessity to deploy "an international military presence" there.
NATO decided Tuesday to gradually reduce the size of the five- kilometer-wide, 476-kilometer-long "security zone" imposed in June 1999 by NATO between Serbia proper and its Kosovo province, currently under the U.N. administration.
Presevo, which is part of the security zone where live a majority of Albanian population, saw violent fighting Wednesday between Serbian security forces and Albanian guerrillas of "the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac (UCPMB)."
"In fact, the reasons which led to the creation of this demilitarized zone... have today disappeared. But the method to reduce this zone remains to be defined," said the French Foreign Ministry spokesman.
According to the agreement signed between NATO and Yugoslavia, Yugoslav army can not enter this zone and Serb police can only operate there under restrictive conditions and with light arms.
France has also asked for more adequate security measures for protecting the 30 European Union (EU) observers working in the zone.
The EU high representative for common security and exterior policy, Javier Solana, has asked NATO Secretary General George Robertson to beef up security measures for the EU observers, according to the French Foreign Ministry.
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