NATO is considering allowing Yugoslav soldiers into the troubled zone along Macedonia's border with Kosovo to help put down Albanian guerrilla activity in the area, NATO Secretary-General George Robertson said today.
"We are looking very closely now at the possible decision to allow Yuglosav forces into the ground safety zone along the border with ... Macedonia, and I hope a decision on that will be taken this week," he said.
Robertson spoke with reporters after a private meeting with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the 15-nation Security Council on the crisis along the Kosovo-Macedonia frontier.
He said NATO was determined that the buffer zone, known as the ground safety zone, along Yugoslavia's Serbian border would not be used as a haven by ethnic Albanian extremists to launch attacks against others. The zone was created to protect Kosovo's ethnic Albanians from being menaced by Serb troops.
Albanian rebels have been clashing with Macedonian troops on rugged mountain passes on the border with Kosovo, the Yugoslav province controlled by NATO-led troops who now have tightened border patrols.