Ethnic Albanian rebels of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) will announce tomorrow whether they will join peace talks on Kosovo expected to start on Saturday, a US envoy said in Pristina yesterday.
The US and EU special envoys for Kosovo, Mr Christopher Hill and Mr Wolfgang Petritsch, met the KLA political representative, Mr Adem Demaci, yesterday to urge divided Kosovo Albanian politicians to form a joint negotiating team.
"We had a good discussion," Mr Hill said after the talks. The KLA promised to give a decision tomorrow.
He added that Mr Rexhep Qosja, head of the United Democratic Movement, a coalition of Albanian parties opposed to the moderate leader, Mr Ibrahim Rugova, and "independent intellectuals" had agreed to attend the talks.
Mr Hill and Mr Petritsch also met Mr Rugova. The two envoys said they were satisfied with their meetings. "We found most of the results extremely positive and so we are very happy about this," Mr Petritsch said.
Asked if he was optimistic about the talks, Mr Hill said: "I never like to use words like optimism and the Balkans in the same sentence. But I believe we have a very good process and I believe that everyone involved will definitely want to be there."
Mr Fehmi Agani, a senior aide to Mr Rugova, said earlier yesterday that he expected the pro-independence KLA rebels to join the peace talks.
The Contact Group of Italy, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and the US has summoned Belgrade and the separatist ethnic Albanians to open the peace talks in Rambouillet, near Paris, by Saturday. The warring sides have been given a deadline of one week from then to reach an accord.
Meanwhile, in Berlin yesterday, the NATO Secretary-General, Mr Javier Solana, said NATO could deploy up to 30,000 ground troops in Kosovo to guarantee compliance with a peace agreement.
Belgrade yesterday called for a meeting of the UN Security Council after NATO authorised potential use of air strikes against Yugoslavia, Tanjug news agency reported.