NATO troops in Kosovo have been given an ultimatum of 72 hours to solve the regional crisis posed by the presence of ethnic Albanian rebels inside a pocket of southern Serbia, before Serb forces make a forced return to the territory, a Serbian Interior Minister has said.
"We're serious, we'll wait 72 hours beginning at 7p.m. this (Friday) evening, after we will return to this territory with all the forces at our disposal," said Mr Bozo Prelevic, one of Belgrade's three Interior Ministers.
If by Monday at 7 p.m. Albanian rebels have not withdrawn from the contested areas of southern Serbia's Presevo Valley, where armed clashes have been continuing since Tuesday, the Belgrade regime will also demand NATO redrafts the Military Technical Agreement, drawn up between NATO and Belgrade last June.
Under the agreement, Serb forces cannot intervene in a five kilometre-wide demilitarised security buffer-strip, known as the Ground Safety Zone, or GSZ, which lies along the boundary between Kosovo and Serbia.
By late yesterday the 44,000strong NATO peacekeeping force (Kfor) in Kosovo had not responded to the Belgrade statement.
Fighting between ethnic Albanian rebels and Serb paramilitary police continued inside the GSZ yesterday, after Serb forces were forced to retreat from the village of Lucane, near the Kosovan boundary, under heavy Albanian rebel mortar-fire.
Hundreds of ethnic Albanian displaced people are fleeing into Kosovo from southern Serbia, escaping from four days of continuing fighting between Serb police forces and Albanian separatist guerillas, said the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, in Kosovo's capital.
"There's been heavy mortar fire, and we've had six hundred Albanian displaced people in two days, some on tractors, some carrying their belongings, from the Presevo valley coming across into Kosovo," said UNHCR spokeswoman, Ms Astrid Genderen van Stort, in Pristina.
Ms Van Stort said the fleeing Albanians were coming from the villages of Lucane and Konculj, as well as in the area of southern Serbia's Presevo valley, where Serb police and military frequently clash with ethnic Albanian rebels close to the Kosovo-Serbian boundary.
Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica has warned the security situation "is drastically worsening each day", and could lead to a "full-scale war".
UNHCR said displaced people fleeing into Kosovo had reported that mortar rounds had landed on Thursday on the villages of Konculj and Lucane, which lie on the front line between Serb forces and Albanian rebels.
In four days of clashes, the rebels have killed four Serb policemen, wounded ten, 10, and manned a principal road leading from the Presevo valley into Kosovo.