PRISTINA, Yugoslavia (AP) — NATO’s military chief warned Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic on Tuesday he still has not met terms of an agreement to avert airstrikes.
Kosovo’s rebels, meanwhile, demanded all government troops leave the province or they will continue their independence struggle.
Gen. Wesley Clark delivered the message to Milosevic late Tuesday in the capital Belgrade as a new surge of violence raised fears about the Oct. 12 agreement with U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke.
State Department spokesman James P. Rubin told reporters that Clark would talk to the Yugoslav leader “about his failure to comply fully with the requirements of the international community.”
U.S. and NATO officials have complained that Milosevic has still not withdrawn all the special police units sent to Kosovo in February when he launched his crackdown against ethnic Albanian separatists of the Kosovo Liberation Army.
The KLA has been fighting for independence for Kosovo, a province of Yugoslavia’s main republic of Serbia. Ethnic Albanians comprise 90 percent of Kosovo’s 2 million inhabitants.
Under an agreement with Holbrooke, Milosevic pledged to meet a series of U.N. demands — including a withdrawal of special police and army units, halting the crackdown, allowing international agencies to aid refugees and resuming talks with ethnic Albanians on the future of the province.
Meanwhile, recent violence has prompted Yugoslav army troops backed by Serbian police to maintain a presence.
On Tuesday, the official Yugoslav news agency Tanjug claimed a Serb policeman was wounded when “terrorists” attacked a police patrol near Klina, 30 miles southwest of Pristina.
In Pristina, KLA rebels issued a statement detailing a series of demands, chief among them the withdrawal of all government forces from the province.