NATO and EU call for autonomy rather than independence

Despite strong pressure from NATO and the EU to dilute his commitment to independence from Serbia, the Kosovan Albanian leader, Dr Ibrahim Rugova, yesterday reiterated his rejection of autonomy within Serbia as a solution to the province's problems.

And he backed threats by the international community to use military force to prevent further ethnic cleansing which, he said, had already led to 100,000 people leaving their homes.

After a meeting with the EU Commissioner for External Relations, Mr Hans van den Broek, Dr Rugova said Kosovo should have the same right to secede from the former Yugoslav Federation as did Croatia and Slovenia. And he warned that negotiations with the Serb authorities would be impossible without the withdrawal of military forces from the province.

Mr van den Broek insisted that the support of the international community was for an autonomy option rather than independence, which, he said, could prove destabilising to the whole region. But he warned the President of the current Yugoslav Federation, Mr Slobodan Milosevic, that unless he came to negotiations with "a substantial proposal on substantial autonomy" the province would be increasingly radicalised.

The subtext of his message was clear - the EU believes that Dr Rugova, who has consistently rejected the use of force, is a man they can work with who will ultimately accept the autonomy option as a compromise. But he may not be around long enough in the volatile politics of the province to be able to secure a deal.

Mr Milosevic, the logic goes, has an interest in moving fast if he ultimately wants to defend the territorial integrity of the Serbian state.

Dr Rugova called on the international community to make Kosovo an international "protectorate" for the transition phase ahead of independence.

Asked if he backed military threats by the international Contact Group against Serbia, Dr Rugova said that he was "asking for pressure on Belgrade by any means - economic and political and Kosovo must be protected now." The EU, he said, was discussing no-fly zones and military strikes, and it was important that there was a discussion on how to stop attacks on Kosovo and ethnic cleansing now.

He rejected a suggestion that the militant Kosovo Liberation Army should be allowed to participate in political talks. "I alone am the elected, and not self-proclaimed, president of Kosovo," he insisted.

Agencies add: The chairman of Europe's leading security organisation yesterday suggested that a solution to the Kosovo crisis could be achieved by avoiding a straight choice between autonomy or independence for Serbia's southern province.

"We must get out of the debate locked in the alternative between autonomy and independence," the chairman of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Mr Bronislaw Geremek, told the assembly of the Council of Europe.

The US envoy, Mr Richard Holbrooke, continuing his mission in Kosovo, met yesterday for the first time with guerrillas of the underground Kosovo Liberation Army, and demanded withdrawal of the Serbian security forces from the area.

This was the first known meeting between a Western official and militant rebels from the UCK (the Albanian acronym for the Kosovo Liberation Army).