The Yugoslav government has proposed that parliament adopt a declaration calling on the UN to clear ethnic Albanian rebels from a demilitarized zone in southern Serbia, the state agency Tanjug reported Monday.
The government said otherwise it would take the problem into its own hands, the agency added citing a government statement.
The declaration was to be adopted by the two-chamber Yugoslav parliament on its session on Wednesday, following the proposal by the Serbian and Yugoslav governments who met in the southern town of Bujanovac on December 16.
It demanded that "the UN security council take measures as soon as possible for the urgent withdrawal of Albanian terrorists from the security zone."
"Failing this, Yugoslavia will use its legal and legitimate rights to resolve the problem by using methods internationally authorized in the fight against terrorism, which is its duty," the declaration said.
On December 19, the UN Security Council condemned the separatists and demanded their withdrawal from the zone, following Belgrade calls to end the rebel attacks in which at least fifteen people were killed since mid-1999.
NATO-led peacekeepers (KFOR) and the United Nations mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) "are directly responsible for armed intrusions by the Albanian terrorists in the zone," the declaration said.
"They have neither provided security, (nor have they protected) human rights and freedoms of all the citizens in Kosovo, nor have they disarmed armed Albanian terrorist groups," it added.
The self-proclaimed Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac (UCPMB) has clashed with Serb police in the five kilometre (three mile) demilitarised zone between Kosovo and the rest of Serbia in recent weeks.
The rebels want the towns of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac, and the surrounding area, which have a large ethnic Albanian population, to become a part of Kosovo, which is currently under UN administration.
The declaration said that Yugoslavia "will never, and under no conditions, allow deprivation of a part of its territory."
It also condemned "armed attacks" by the UCPMB rebels, calling them "planned and continued jeopardizing and violating territorial integrity and sovereignty of Yugoslavia, and a drastic breach of the UN resolution 1244" that had brought an end to the Kosovo war in 1999.
The declaration also called for a limited return of Yugoslav army troops to Kosovo, as agreed upon in the UN-approved peace deal for the province, and for setting up a coordinating group to better monitor the conflict near the zone -- BELGRADE (AFP)
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