UN Security Council team to visit Kosovo, Belgrade
( 2001-06-15 11:32 ) (7 )

UN Security Council ambassadors head for Kosovo on Friday for a first-hand look at preparations for Nov. 17 elections intended to give the province substantial self-government.

The council mission hoped to see how the UN Mission in Kosovo, known as UNMIK, was coping with the political and security challenges in the run-up to the first Kosovo-wide vote, said Ambassador Anwarul Karim Chowdhury of Bangladesh, mission leader and this month's council president.

Envoys would also look at how to encourage the return before the elections of Serb refugees who fled Kosovo, a Yugoslav province, during fighting there and have been afraid to return for fear of attacks from the province's majority ethnic Albanians.

Kosovo has been under UN administration since June 1999, after a NATO bombing campaign aimed at ending Serbian repression of the province's ethnic Albanians. A NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) is responsible for security.

"The council's intention is to get a free, fair and nonviolent election held in November. We would like to see broad participation also," Chowdhury told a news conference on the eve of the mission's departure.

"The council will be carrying the message that there should be an improvement in the security situation, enabling the refugees to return -- and when they return, to participate in the elections," he said.

The group will go to Pristina, the provincial capital, as well as Mitrovica, scene of some of the worst violence between Kosovo Albanians and Serbs. They end their trip in Belgrade.

While the province legally remains part of Serb-dominated Yugoslavia, the Security Council has ordered the UN administration to give it substantial self-government while its final status is worked out.

Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, who ousted President Slobodan Milosevic last year, has criticized the UN plan for the province, arguing it prejudges a final solution for Kosovo and fails to protect the rights of the Serb minority.

Chowdhury said the mission would hold talks with Kostunica in Belgrade on Monday as well as with Prime Minister Zoran Zizic and Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic.

The team would spend the weekend in Kosovo, meeting with Hans Haekkerup, the chief UN administrator for Kosovo, KFOR officials and local Serb and Albanian leaders.

STEERING CLEAR OF PROBLEMS IN MACEDONIA

But Chowdhury said the council mission would largely steer clear of the problems in neighboring Macedonia, where the government is attempting to put down a four-month-old rebellion by ethnic Albanian guerrillas. NATO is monitoring the warfare.

Last year, Russia dominated the visit. Its ambassador, Sergei Lavrov, first traveled to Belgrade when Milosevic, indicted by a UN tribunal for his actions in Kosovo, was still in office.

Lavrov also initiated this year's trip, with Russian envoys saying it was important that the Security Council, where Moscow has veto power, keep control of the Kosovo operation, which includes the United States as well as the European Union.

The 15 UN envoys are from the United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, Jamaica, Mali, Tunisia, Ukraine, Colombia, Ireland, Mauritius, Norway and Singapore as well as Bangladesh.