Serbia proposes return of security forces to Kosovo

PRISTINA, Serbia, Aug 17 (Reuters) Serbia said today it was time to return its security forces to Kosovo, a move that could derail last-ditch talks on the fate of the Albanian-majority territory before they begin.

The suggestion by a Serb leader in Kosovo was swiftly taken up by an aide to Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica.

''We think the time has come,'' Aleksandar Simic told Beta news agency.

UN Security Council Resolution 1244 of June 1999, which placed the territory under U.N. control, allows for the return of ''hundreds, not thousands'' of Serb soldiers and police.

It never happened because it would risk conflict.

Serbia, under late strongman Slobodan Milosevic, pulled its forces out of its southern province in June 1999 after 11 weeks of NATO bombing to halt the ethnic cleansing and slaughter of Kosovo's ethnic Albanians in a two-year counter-insurgency war.

NATO, which has 16,000 troops from 35 nations in the territory, has told Kosovo's 2 million Albanians -- 90 per cent of the population -- that Serb forces will never be back.

1,000 TO PROTECT SERBS Yesterday, the Serbian National Council of Northern Kosovo asked Belgrade to make a formal request to the UN Security Council for the return of about 1,000 Serbian soldiers and police to the territory.

''Practically the only guarantee for Serbs are UN Resolution 1244 and the Serbian army and police,'' council president Milan Ivanovic told the state agency Tanjug. He said Serb forces should be deployed in Serb areas of Kosovo.

Arben Qirezi, a senior adviser to Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku, rejected the suggestion, saying a Serb deployment would worsen an already fragile situation.

''The fate of the Serbian forces was decided in June 1999. But it seems the Serbian regime has a very short memory, and unfortunately remnants of Milosevic's regime and its policy are still alive,'' he said.

Between 7,500 and 12,000 people, mostly Albanians, were killed by Serb forces, and 800,000 temporarily driven out.

The proposed return of forces is in line with an increasingly confrontational tone from Kostunica's aides and ministers over the West's support for Kosovo's independence.

Officials this week accused Washington, chief ally of the Kosovo Albanians, of seeking to make Kosovo a ''NATO state''.

Serbs and Albanians travel to Vienna at the end of August for separate meetings with a troika of envoys from the United States, Russia and the European Union, who are launching what the West hopes will be a final push for compromise.

Russia, backing Serbia, has blocked the adoption of a Western-backed plan at the UN Security Council offering Kosovo independence under EU supervision.

Kostunica has offered Albanians broad autonomy, but no share in governing Serbia as equal citizens. Albanians say they will accept nothing less than their own state.

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