Edinburgh - A US envoy yesterday said "tremendous improvement" had been noted in the plight of refugees in Kosovo. The US special envoy to the Serbian province, Mr Christopher Hill, told NATO parliamentarians in the Scottish capital that refugees were now able to return to their homes, and aid organisations had freedom of movement within the province.
However, in a speech to the European Parliament in Brussels, a Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) leader, Mr Bardhyl Mahmuti, accused the international community of "hypocrisy".
"Twenty-six thousand homes were burned in Kosovo, which, counting 10 people per home, makes 260,000 refugees. These people have nothing left and the international community must stop this hypocrisy of telling the refugees to return home," he said.
Meanwhile, western officials in Pristina said the OSCE mission in Kosovo has been slow in getting into place, and its active deployment is expected by the end of November. Some 30 people, among them Americans, Britons, Russians, Swedes and Norwegians, have already started working in the general headquarters of the mission in Pristina, an Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) spokesman said.