NATO allies agreed on Monday to let Yugoslav forces back into the most sensitive part of a buffer zone around Kosovo despite growing violence between Serbs and ethnic Albanian rebels who have warned the move could spark a new war.
Alliance ambassadors said NATO-led KFOR peacekeepers would oversee a "phased and controlled" return of the tense Sector B of the Ground Safety Zone (GSZ) to Yugoslav forces on May 24.
The three mile wide zone was created in June 1999 as part of a deal to end NATO's 11-week bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, launched to halt Belgrade's repression in ethnic Albanian-dominated Kosovo.
Ethnic Albanian rebels, fighting what they say is Serb discrimination against local Albanians, moved into the area and use it as a guerrilla base for attacking Serb forces.
At least two ethnic Albanians were earlier reported killed and three Yugoslav soldiers wounded in recent fighting in southern Serbia's volatile Presevo Valley.
Rebel commander Ridvan Cazimi warned last week that if NATO ceded control to Yugoslav forces "armed ethnic Albanians will defend themselves and it will be the beginning of a war."
NATO Secretary General George Robertson said the buffer, initially set up to keep apart KFOR and Yugoslav forces, was now redundant, but the alliance had not taken the decision to hand it back lightly.
He warned that any attacks on KFOR troops would draw "a robust military response."
"The time has come for Albanian armed groups to lay down their weapons and take an active part in the peaceful political process within a democratic Serbia," he added -- BRUSSELS (Reuters)
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