Shadow on Bosnian talks

Madrid - Western powers yesterday called for urgent action to shore up the fragile peace process in Bosnia and voiced fears about…

Madrid - Western powers yesterday called for urgent action to shore up the fragile peace process in Bosnia and voiced fears about renewed violence in Kosovo.

More than 50 countries and international organisations were meeting in Madrid for a two-day conference of the Bosnia Peace Implementation Council to urge Bosnian leaders to do more to bridge the ethnic divide following their 1992-1995 war.

But an outbreak of violence which threatened to shatter a two-month-old ceasefire in Serbia's Kosovo province had cast a shadow over the high-level meeting. Thirty-one ethnic Albanians were killed on Monday in fighting with Yugoslav security forces, and in another incident, gunmen killed six Serbs in a Kosovo bar.