Belgrade, Yugoslavia — Talks on a proposed cease-fire between Yugoslav forces and ethnic Albanian guerrillas in southern Serbia's Presevo Valley broke off with no apparent progress Saturday.
Difficulties in the cease-fire talks delayed plans for Yugoslav troops to begin entering part of a buffer zone today between Kosovo and the rest of Serbia adjacent to the Macedonian border, Yugoslav authorities said.
Ethnic Albanian children watch Friday as a U.S army helicopter lands in the village of Debellde, Kosovo. U.S. soldiers have moved to the border in force to try to stop the flow of weapons and supplies to ethnic Albanian insurgents in Macedonia.
Government officials earlier said they expected NATO to give final approval Saturday of the terms under which Yugoslav forces would be allowed to enter the buffer zone. NATO granted approval in principle last week for Yugoslav forces to cut off routes used by guerrillas operating along the Kosovo border in northern Macedonia and the nearby Presevo Valley.
The proposed cease-fire is being brokered by NATO special envoy Pieter Feith, who met separately in the Presevo Valley on Saturday with representatives of each side.
"The talks with Mr. Feith will continue tomorrow," Rasim Ljajic, Yugoslavia's minister for ethnic minorities, said Saturday evening. Today's talks between Yugoslav authorities and Feith will be "both about the (cease-fire) agreement and about entry of Yugoslav forces into the ground safety zone on the border toward Macedonia."
In the guerrilla-held Presevo Valley villages of Konculj and Ternavc, fighters and ordinary citizens gave no signs of willingness to back down or call off the fight.
"The front line ... will be defended up to the last drop of blood," said a guerrilla leader identified as Commander Lleshi. The morale of the fighters "is as high as it gets because we are fighting for a just cause and we know we are right."
Many observers say the rebels' long-term aim is to slice off parts of southern Serbia and northern Macedonia that are heavily ethnic Albanian in population and attach them to an ultimately independent "Greater Kosovo" or "Greater Albania." Some in the guerrilla-held territory complain about unfair boundaries that split the Albanian people, while others say they want only an end to repression and are not seeking separation from Serbia. Kosovo is a province of Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic.
Fighting continued Saturday in the Serb-held Presevo Valley villages of Lucane and Oslare.
"Today (the guerrillas) have used everything mortars, automatic grenade launchers, heavy machine guns, ordinary machine guns, sniper fire," said Rodomir Djeric, a Serbian officer in Lucane. "Nothing is over."
A mortar attack by guerrillas against the Serb village of Oslare injured an 11-year-old boy in the arm when a shell struck a house, Yugoslav officials said. Mortars were also landing in guerrilla-held territory, within a quarter of a mile of Konculj, the guerrilla headquarters, where children played in the narrow streets as if nothing special were happening.
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