Kostunica appeals for help in border zone around Kosovo

VIENNA - Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica said yesterday he had written to the heads of NATO and the United Nations to seek urgent changes to rules governing the presence of Serbian security forces in a border zone around Kosovo where Serb police have been killed.

Kostunica said minority Serbs in the tense Presevo Valley region had been "ethnically cleansed" by ethnic Albanian gunmen and "only a small unit" of lightly armed Serbian police was left to patrol the area, facing heavily armed groups.

The Yugoslav leader, speaking to reporters in Vienna, said there were problems with the June 1999 Military Technical Agreement (MTA) which authorised deployment of NATO-led peacekeeping troops in Kosovo and set up a "ground safety zone" of three miles around the province in Serbia proper.

Ethnic Albanian guerrillas claim to be protecting ethnic Albanians in the towns and villages of the valley.

Serbia is gaining international sympathy for its view that they are trying to ignite a crisis and force a separation of the territory.

Kostunica said his government was abiding strictly by the terms of the MTA and engaging the major international organisations and also Kosovo Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova in dialogue.

But he said there was "serious ambiguity" in the agreement which needed to be addressed and he had written to George Robertson of NATO and Kofi Annan of the U.N. to seek their help.

- REUTERS

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