(26 Aug 1998) English/Nat
Western diplomats have met in the Kosovo in an attempt to kickstart peace talks in the troubled province.
Amid reports of renewed fighting in the breakaway Serbian province, negotiators were forced to admit on Wednesday that progress will be slow.
But all agreed that the main concern should be the fate of the region's refugees.
Western diplomats gathered in the Kosovan capital of Pristina on Wednesday in an attempt to resolve the simmering conflict in the province.
Wilfred Gruber, the German Ambassador to Belgrade, and Peter Ricketts of the British Foreign Office were here to lend their weight to the bid to break the deadlock.
Since March, ethnic Albanians, who account for 90 per cent of the population of the Serb-run province, have been fighting for an independent state.
But Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has ruled it out, preferring to wage war on the guerrilla separatists.
Western powers also oppose independence for Kosovo because they fear a change of borders would trigger a larger Balkan conflict.
In a series of discussions, Western diplomats met representatives of all sides involved in the conflict.
The envoys were expected to suggest a restoration of Kosovo's regional autonomy, abolished in 1989, as the best compromise, although most Kosovo Albanians insist they want independence.
In a meeting with Veljko Odalovic, Gruber tried to assure the Kosovo Governor that it was essential for peace in the region that the war came to an end - not least for the tens of thousands of ethnic Albanian refugees fleeing the Serb offensive.
According to the pro-Albanian Kosovo Information Centre, more than ten-thousand refugees are on the run again after three days of clashes near Suva Reka.
They are now said to be cowering in a valley connecting this region to nearby Malisevo.
Ricketts and Gerhard Jandl, Head of the European Union's working group for the Balkans, also met the Kosovan President, Ibrahim Rugova.
Jandl put the pending refugee crisis at the top of the agenda.
He told Rugova there could be no political solution in Kosovo until there was a humanitarian solution.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"We still believe strongly that there is no military solution to this crisis, and we want to see negotiations start as soon as possible."
SUPER CAPTION: Peter Ricketts, Deputy Political Director, British Foreign Office
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"We agreed completely that the humanitarian situation will amount to a very terrible catastrophe in the fall and in the winter if it's not redressed. So the first priority which we see - both the European Union countries and also President Rugova - is certainly to alleviate the plight of the suffering population, to try to get the displaced persons back into their villages and into their towns."
SUPER CAPTION: Gerhard Jandl, Austrian Minister
Jandl also met representatives of the ethnic Albanian guerilla movement - the Kosovo Liberation Army (K-L-A).
A spokesman for the K-L-A blamed the Serbs for the worsening situation in the region.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"We are concerned about it. We are very sad about it, but we have no power to do anything because the Serbian regime have power, and the Serbian regime make that crisis, the Serbian regime make that tragedy, and for it I think international factors must do something."
SUPER CAPTION: Adem Demaci, Kosovo Liberation Army spokesman
But with fighting continuing to claim lives, both sides know the only way to avert more misery in Kosovo is to match the international will for peace with action.
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