Peace Proposals Yugoslavia

With peace talks deadlocked, Yugoslav troops closed in on a strategic mountain ridge in Kosovo on Wednesday, leaving hopes fading for a solution to the war in the Serbian province. Serbian negotiators in Paris are refusing to discuss deployment of 28,000 NATO soldiers to enforce any deal and demanded about 20 changes to a draft political accord giving ethnic Albanians in the province more autonomy, foreign mediators said. Ethnic Albanians are set to sign the deal.

German NATO troops gained control of this war-whipped city in southwestern Kosovo on Monday and escorted 5,000 Serbian police and civilians out of town through a gantlet of taunting ethnic Albanians. Released from chronic fear and intoxicated with freedom after more than two months hiding in their homes, ethnic Albanians poured into the streets for celebrations that verged on hysteria.

Talks on Yugoslavia's disputed, violence-racked region of Kosovo teetered on the edge of breakdown Thursday as the ethnic Albanians formally signed a peace agreement but their battlefield enemies, the Serbs, stayed away.

Pointedly ignoring Slobodan Milosevic's new stigma as a war crimes suspect, Russia's envoy for Kosovo engaged the Yugoslav president in nine hours of peace talks Friday here in a city blacked out by the busiest day of bombing in NATO's 9-week-old air assault. In terse statements afterward, both parties made it clear that former Russian Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin's effort to mediate between Milosevic and the Western alliance was still on track.

With violence spreading in the southern Serbian province of Kosovo, talks aimed at finding a solution to the conflict ended with no immediate sign of progress beyond an apparent agreement that the conferees will meet again. "Both sides are ready to talk, and this is encouraging," said Blerim Shala, a member of a team representing Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority in the unprecedented discussions with Serbian authorities.

Yugoslav Bonds Boosted by Peace Plan: Defaulted Yugoslav bonds soared after Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian leaders agreed to the plan and the U.N. Security Council suspended economic sanctions against Serbia. Yugoslav New Financing Agreement bonds--issued as part of a debt rescheduling in the 1980s before the country splintered and descended into civil war--rose 1.5 points to 46.5 bid and 48.5 offered in London. The bonds have risen 38.6% in value since early September. They are up 12.

Fehmi Agani, a prominent politician and member of the Kosovo Albanian delegation at February's failed peace talks in France, was found dead today, the state-run Tanjug news agency reported. Tanjug said Agani's body was found by police in Lipljan, about 12 miles south of Kosovo's capital, Pristina. The agency blamed the killing on the Kosovo Liberation Army. Agani was a close aide of Ibrahim Rugova, Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leader who was allowed to leave the country for Rome on Wednesday.

Searching for a solution to what has become the most extensive European conflict since World War II, European leaders were offered two proposals Wednesday aimed at restoring peace to Yugoslavia, but the sudden diplomatic flurry produced little visible progress. Germany presented the European Parliament with a six-point plan that would engage Russia and the United Nations, both of which have been sidelined so far in efforts to resolve the Kosovo crisis.

Pointedly ignoring Slobodan Milosevic's new stigma as a war crimes suspect, Russia's envoy for Kosovo engaged the Yugoslav president in nine hours of peace talks Friday here in a city blacked out by the busiest day of bombing in NATO's 9-week-old air assault. In terse statements afterward, both parties made it clear that former Russian Prime Minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin's effort to mediate between Milosevic and the Western alliance was still on track.

Last-chance talks on ending the conflict in Serbia's Kosovo province began Monday with ethnic Albanians offering written support for a proposed peace deal, placing their foes with "their backs against the wall," as French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine put it. The ethnic Albanians' assent, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook agreed, means "we have now taken away from the Serb delegation their first line of defense" for not signing the internationally mandated agreement.

The Yugoslav government indicated Friday that it no longer objects to a key NATO demand that alliance troops form the core of an international peacekeeping force in Kosovo. But a senior Yugoslav official said the makeup, size and mandate of such a force for maintaining peace in the war-torn province was an issue that should be worked out between the Balkan nation and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Fehmi Agani, a prominent politician and member of the Kosovo Albanian delegation at February's failed peace talks in France, was found dead today, the state-run Tanjug news agency reported. Tanjug said Agani's body was found by police in Lipljan, about 12 miles south of Kosovo's capital, Pristina. The agency blamed the killing on the Kosovo Liberation Army. Agani was a close aide of Ibrahim Rugova, Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leader who was allowed to leave the country for Rome on Wednesday.

Searching for a solution to what has become the most extensive European conflict since World War II, European leaders were offered two proposals Wednesday aimed at restoring peace to Yugoslavia, but the sudden diplomatic flurry produced little visible progress. Germany presented the European Parliament with a six-point plan that would engage Russia and the United Nations, both of which have been sidelined so far in efforts to resolve the Kosovo crisis.

Talks on Yugoslavia's disputed, violence-racked region of Kosovo teetered on the edge of breakdown Thursday as the ethnic Albanians formally signed a peace agreement but their battlefield enemies, the Serbs, stayed away.

With peace talks deadlocked, Yugoslav troops closed in on a strategic mountain ridge in Kosovo on Wednesday, leaving hopes fading for a solution to the war in the Serbian province. Serbian negotiators in Paris are refusing to discuss deployment of 28,000 NATO soldiers to enforce any deal and demanded about 20 changes to a draft political accord giving ethnic Albanians in the province more autonomy, foreign mediators said. Ethnic Albanians are set to sign the deal.

Kosovo's Cicavica mountains cut through the heart of rebel territory, and Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has chosen this high ground to answer Western demands for peace. His response came in a series of shuddering blasts that sent up dark plumes of smoke from this deserted village Tuesday afternoon while negotiations for peace in the separatist province stalled in Paris.

Three policemen were shot dead in Bosnia-Herzegovina a few hours before a visit Friday by the commander of U.N. peacekeeping forces to his new headquarters in Sarajevo, capital of the restive republic. The upsurge in violence highlighted problems facing 14,000 U.N. peacekeepers, due to arrive by May after eight months of fierce fighting between Croats and Serbs in the newly independent republic of Croatia.

The Clinton administration will suggest a gradual lifting of remaining sanctions against the rump Yugoslavia if President Slobodan Milosevic agrees to a negotiated settlement of the crisis in Kosovo, a senior official said Monday. In an effort to pressure Milosevic into unconditional negotiations with Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, who make up 90% of the population of the Serbian province, U.S.

Last-chance talks on ending the conflict in Serbia's Kosovo province began Monday with ethnic Albanians offering written support for a proposed peace deal, placing their foes with "their backs against the wall," as French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine put it. The ethnic Albanians' assent, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook agreed, means "we have now taken away from the Serb delegation their first line of defense" for not signing the internationally mandated agreement.

With violence spreading in the southern Serbian province of Kosovo, talks aimed at finding a solution to the conflict ended with no immediate sign of progress beyond an apparent agreement that the conferees will meet again. "Both sides are ready to talk, and this is encouraging," said Blerim Shala, a member of a team representing Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority in the unprecedented discussions with Serbian authorities.