KEEPING Kosovo under control is hard enough-but now Kfor, the NATO force that took control of the province in 1999, has another task: reining in Kosovar-Albanian guerrillas mounting twin insurgencies in Macedonia and Yugoslavia. On March 10th, NATO convened peace talks between the guerrillas in Yugoslavia and the local authorities, which have yet to yield any results. The hope is to avoid further shoot-outs like Kfor's clash on March 8th with ethnic-Albanian guerrillas in the village of Tanusevci on the border between Macedonia and Kosovo. Whether the talks succeed or not, it is clear that, in addition to its delicate mission in Kosovo, NATO now risks becoming involved in two more unpredictable and open-ended Balkana conflicts.

The fear is that the resurgence of ethnic violence will increase tension between ethnic Albanians and Slavs in Macedonia, stoke nationalist feelings among the Serb majority in Yugoslavia, and vindicate those who warned that the alliance was getting involved in a hopeless Balkan quagmire. That sort of "mission creep" would not go down well with the American public, nor with an American administration sceptical about foreign entanglements. The ultimate nightmare would be more fighting, refugees, and the dismemberment of yet another Balkan state. Given their history of indecision and incompetence in the face of the regional cataclysm of the past decade, America, the European Union, the United Nations and NATO are all anxious to head off fresh crises.

The incident at Tanusevci is not a one-off. Ethnic-Albanian gunmen have been roaming northern Macedonia and clashing with Macedonian forces since mid-February. Their identity remains unclear, but they are thought to be veterans of the insurgency in Kosovo against the Yugoslav army at the time of NATO's air war against Yugoslavia in 1999. They have killed four Macedonian soldiers in various clashes. Although they retreated from Tanusevci without a fight, they seem simply to have regrouped elsewhere in the hills and villages of northern Macedonia. On March 9th they were busily shooting at a Macedonian police convoy. Kfor is trying to seal the border between Kosovo and Macedonia, but the rugged terrain makes that difficult. The Macedonian government has become so edgy that it has closed all official border crossings and called up army and police reservists.

Ethnic-Albanian gunmen have also taken up positions in the Presevo valley, a partially Albanian-inhabited swathe of Yugoslavia along the border with Kosovo. The insurgents are taking advantage of something called "the ground security zone"-a five-kilometre (three-mile) demilitarised strip on the Yugoslav side of Kosovo’s boundary. Under the agreement of June 1999 that ended NATO’s bombardment, Yugoslavia agreed not to deploy anything more than lightly armed police in the area. The intention was to avoid clashes between Kfor and the Yugoslav army. But in practice, the zone has provided a no-mans-land open to infiltration by Kosovar guerrillas. Since the southernmost sliver of the zone abuts the Macedonian border, it also allows the guerrillas to slip into Macedonia undetected.

One down, umpteen to go

To stop that, NATO has agreed to let the Yugoslav army into the southernmost portion of the zone. But it will have to tread warily. If Yugoslav forces crack down too hard, Kosovar Albanians will see it as a renewal of the campaign of ethnic cleansing that prompted the Kosovo war in the first place. On the other hand, many Yugoslavs already consider their country unfairly put-upon. America and the EU are leaning on the government to hand suspected war criminals over to the international tribunal in The Hague. A campaign for independence continues in Montenegro, the only republic left alongside Serbia in the Yugoslav federation. Calls for Yugoslav forces to go soft on ethnic-Albanian guerrillas might drive Serbs back towards the very nationalism that NATO has long struggled to defuse. The protracted and difficult nature of the current talks reflect that tension.

The political situation in Macedonia is also fraught. Perhaps as many as a third of its population are ethnic Albanians, while the remainder are Slavs. Slavs dominate the army and the police in particular, and have a tendency to crack the heads of innocent ethnic-Albanian bystanders. The Albanian community has an unemployment rate of 60%, about twice the national average. Tension between the two groups has been high since the Kosovo war, and the battle over Tanusevci has heightened them further. Most of the ethnic-Albanian villagers displaced by the fighting have fled to Kosovo, rather than risk their luck with their own government.

The threat posed by the Kosovar guerrillas depends in part on how strongly they co-ordinate their attacks. Paul Beaver, a defence analyst, recently caused a stir among Balkan-watchers by asserting that the violence in Macedonia and Yugoslavia, in addition to anti-Serb riots in the town of Mitrovica in Kosovo, formed part of an international Albanian-nationalist campaign run from the lawless wilds of northern Albania. Others accuse the guerrillas of using nationalism as cover for smuggling. Kosovo and the surrounding region are certainly major transit points for illicit traffic in drugs, guns, prostitutes and immigrants. But whatever the guerrillas’ motives, their actions have kept NATO commanders guessing and their troops thinly stretched.

NATO wants to reduce its commitment to the area, not increase it. After the clashes in Tanusevci, alliance officials were desperately insisting they would not get sucked into the fighting in Yugoslavia, or allow Kfor's mission to "creep" any further. That depends less on the top brass in Brussels than on the local people, who seem as fed up with the fighting as anyone. Before the guerrillas intervened, Macedonia’s government, which includes an ethnic-Albanian party, was taking sensible measures to endear itself to ethnic Albanians, such as opening an Albanian-language university. During local elections last October, a clear majority of Kosovar Albanians voted for moderates opposed to further violence. In Yugoslavia, too, nationalism has waned since the fall of Slobodan Milosevic. NATO’s ever more pressing task is to make sure that the peaceful majority wins the troublemakers over-and not the other way around.

SKOPJE, Macedonia - The crisis in Macedonia escalated yesterday, as ethnic Albanian nationalists launched a new political party seeking autonomy for the country's large ethnic Albanian minority.

The National Democratic Party's demands mirror those of a shadowy ethnic Albanian guerrilla group that has seized a swath of territory along Macedonia's border with Yugoslavia's overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian province of Kosovo.

The Bush administration and other Western governments are deeply worried about Macedonia's security and political integrity, and the emergence of the new party heightened the threat of ethnic strife in Macedonia that could spill into Kosovo and embroil a NATO-led peacekeeping force there, which includes 4,600 U.S. troops.

Western diplomats and Macedonian officials suspect there may be close links between the new party and the guerrillas. Ethnic Albanian hard-liners on both sides of the border have long harbored a dream of uniting Kosovo, Macedonia's ethnic Albanian-dominated areas, and Albania in a "Greater Albania."

NATO has stepped up cooperation with Macedonian security forces and is also working with Yugoslavia to contain ethnic Albanian insurgents in a nearby area of southern Serbia where the Macedonian and Yugoslav borders come together.

Ethnic Albanian rebels in Yugoslavia yesterday rejected a NATO proposal to allow Yugoslav soldiers to return to a buffer zone along the boundary with Kosovo, complicating efforts to forge a cease-fire in the region.

Serious ethnic strife in Macedonia could worsen the instability throughout the southern Balkans, unhinging international efforts to promote democracy and prosperity in the region after four wars ignited by the collapse of the former Yugoslavia in 1991.

The Macedonian government kept its border crossings with Yugoslavia closed for a third day yesterday, shutting the main route for goods going to and from Kosovo and Serbia from the northern Greek port of Thessalonika. The highway through Macedonia is the main supply route for KFOR, the NATO-led peacekeeping force sent to Kosovo in 1999 to protect its ethnic Albanian majority from the forces of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

An impoverished, nascent democracy of two million people, Macedonia seceded from the former Yugoslavia in 1991, but it so far has avoided the serious ethnic strife that has torn at other former Yugoslav republics. Its ruling coalition comprises majority Macedonians, who are Slavs, and ethnic Albanians, who make up one-third of the population.

Ethnic tensions have been growing in recent weeks, however, since the ethnic Albanian guerrillas of the previously unknown National Liberation Army, or NLA, moved into several villages just inside Macedonia's border with Kosovo.

MERDARE, Yugoslavia, March 12 (AFP) - NATO and Yugoslavia finalised an accord Monday that will allow Belgrade's security forces to enter in the coming days part of a neutral buffer zone between Kosovo and southern Serbia.

"A final agreement has been reached about the re-entry of Serb forces in part of the Ground Security Zone," said General Carlo Cabigiosu, commander of NATO-led peacekeepers in Kosovo (KFOR).

The Italian general said the re-entry could be expected "in the very near future ... It is a matter of days."

The move is designed to choke off supplies of men and arms shuttling between two ethnic Albanian rebel groups fighting in southern Serbia and neighbouring Macedonia.

The instability has threatened to plunge the region into war, dragging in NATO troops based in Kosovo.

Cabigiosu was speaking after talks with Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic in Merdare, a village on the northeastern boundary between the UN-run province and the rest of Serbia.

He said the deployment would cover an area five kilometres (three miles) by five kilometres on the southern tip of the buffer zone, where Kosovo, Serbia and Macedonia converge.

Serbian forces will provide KFOR with their deployment plan before re-entering the area, he added.

"Everything will be done to ensure better stability in the area," he said. "The important condition is to make sure that the local population has nothing to be afraid of."

He added: "I am sure the behaviour of the Serbian forces will be fair."

Covic, Belgrade's special envoy to the trouble-hit region, told reporters that this was "a historic day."

"We want peace in all the region and I can assure you that the army and police will not misuse this trust," Covic said.

"We are not for war and we will do everything necessary to solve the problem peacefully," he added.

Leaders of the Albanian community in southern Serbia said Sunday they were against a NATO decision to reduce the buffer zone, set up in the same June 1999 accord that ended NATO's bombing campaign against Belgrade.

Cabigiosu said the time had come for peaceful negotiations, a reference to NATO efforts to hammer out a peace accord between Belgrade and ethnic Albanian rebels who have set up base in the zone in the absence of armed authorities.

"Maybe today we will have a ceasefire in the Presevo valley," the predominantly ethnic Albanian region of southern Serbia which includes the buffer zone, Cabigiosu said, as NATO political officials pursued efforts to reach an accord.

The rebels, fighting to break away from Serbia, rejected a ceasefire deal which would allow Yugoslav troops to enter the buffer zone.

Last Thursday, NATO gave Belgrade the green light to partially re-occupy the zone.

KONCULJ, Yugoslavia, March 12 (AFP) - The leaders of ethnic Albanian rebels fighing Yugoslav forces in south Serbia signed a NATO-brokered ceasefire in this rebel-held village Monday, ending a year-long uprising.

The Serbian side, meeting NATO representatives in the town of Merdare on the Kosovo-Serbia boundary, also signed the agreement, said Italian General Carlo Cabigiosu, head of NATO's peacekeeping troops in Kosovo.

The accord aims to end a year of fighting between Yugoslav forces and ethnic Albanians demanding autonomy from Serbia.

STOCKHOLM, March 12 (AFP) - Macedonian Foreign Minister Srjdan Kerim rejected Monday an ethnic Albanian proposal to set up a federal system in Macedonia with two entities, Macedonian and Albanian.

"A federalisation ... would mean to create two different entities, two opposed entities and that would definitely not work and therefore I think nobody in our country ... would support that," Kerim said following talks here with Sweden's Deputy Prime Minister Lena Hjelm-Wallen.

"We intend firmly to build a civil society and there is no need to federalise Macedonia," he added.

A newly-formed political party promoting ethnic Albanian rights in Macedonia, the National Democratic Party (NDP), has called for the former Yugoslav republic to be transformed into a federation.

The NDP said it would fight for "equality between Albanians and Macedonians," in a statement handed out at the party's inauguration ceremony in Skopje on Sunday.

Five of 16 Macedonian ministers are ethnic Albanians, while each ministry has a deputy or assistant of Albanian nationality, as is the case for the deputy prime minister and deputy chairman of the parliament.

But the Albanians also insist that their language be recognised in the administration on official documents and identity papers. They also want school books revised, better access to universities and more high-level jobs.

Violent clashes over the past few weeks in northwestern Macedonia have pitted government forces against ethnic Albanian rebels of the National Liberation Army (UCK).

On Saturday, the UCK also demanded that Macedonia be made into a federation of "two constituent peoples."

Skopje says Albanians make up about 25 percent of the republic's two million population, while Albanian politicians say the figure is more than 30 percent.

Kerim also called on the UCK "to impose their goals through elections ... but not to kill innocent people or to shoot on our security forces and create trouble on the border and provoke Macedonians."

BELGRADE, March 12 (AFP) - A high-level delegation of Yugoslav officials are set to visit the UN war crimes court in The Hague to present Belgrade's view on cooperation, Serbian Justice Minister Vladan Batic said Monday.

The announcement marks a breakthrough in the official attitude of Belgrade's new authorities, who have made little concrete progress towards cooperating with the court in the six months they have held power.

"Being aware of the obligation to cooperate with The Hague-based tribunal, we want to point out that a procedure has been launched to adopt a law on cooperation with the tribunal," Batic told reporters.

The announcement came just hours after the first war crimes suspect to hold Yugoslav nationality handed himself over to the court.

The delegation will meet top officials of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), including court president Claude Jorda, Batic said, but gave no details about when the visit would take place.

During the visit, the first of its kind from Belgrade, the delegation "will point out that we do not want anybody to force any ultimatums on us," Batic added.

He was clearly referring to growing international pressure on Belgrade to arrest and extradite former president Slobodan Milosevic, wanted along with four of his allies for his part in Belgrade's ruthless 1999 crackdown on Kosovo's Albanians.

Until now, Belgrade has refused to hand over Yugoslav war crimes suspects. Many of those sought for crimes committed during the Croatian, Bosnian and Kosovo conflicts are believed to be living in Yugoslavia.

The Belgrade delegation will also use the visit to "make certain of the conditions under which our citizens and our compatriots have found themselves in The Hague, and to take care of them," Batic said.

"Finally, we want to provide evidence and to insist proceedings be launched as soon as possible against KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) leaders such as Hashim Thaci and Agim Ceku for the monstrous crimes committed in Kosovo against Serbs and other non-Albanians," the minister said.

Thaci, the former KLA political leader, now heads his own political party and holds a seat on the UN-sponsored joint interim administrative council in Kosovo.

Ceku, the ex-military commander of the KLA, is head of the Kosovo Protection Force, the civilian successor of the disbanded KLA, which is tasked with dealing with disaster relief operations.

"We will try to enable the ICTY investigators to meet witnesses, so this cooperation could be two-way traffic," he added.

"We want to point out that the tribunal cannot be mother to some and stepmother to others," Batic said.

Batic spoke as Blagoje Simic, wanted for war crimes committed during the Bosnian war, turned himself in to the UN tribunal.

KOSOVO-MACEDONIA BORDER, March 12 (AFP) - A dozen ethnic Albanian men gather round the mules after dark, check the harnesses and load the last bags of supplies, then head off along the mountain trail that snakes toward for Kosovo's border with Macedonia and rebel headquarters.

In the clear moonlight the white bags on the mules' backs and the burning cigarette tips are less than discreet for a group of clandestine smugglers. Neither are the laughs or the oaths of the men climbing the steep path.

The supply mule train leaves almost every day from a village in the UN-administered Yugoslav province to make the three-hour trek to the headquarters of the National Liberation (UCK) across the border.

"We've had some problems in the past, a few shots fired near the border," said one of the smugglers. "But where we are heading tonight is in a zone watched over by our boys."

"The problem is that there aren't dozens of roads in and the sector is mined," he said.

Most of the men on the convoy say they are Macedonians, although some make no secret of the fact they are from Kosovo, whose own guerrillas -- also called UCK in Albanian -- managed to drag NATO into their own conflict with Yugoslavia.

All the men are fighting with the new UCK to "defend the rights of the Albanians, wherever they are," says one.

The fighters claim Macedonia's ethnic Albanians -- who they say make up more than a third of the population -- are oppressed by the Macedonian authorities and have to be protected by armed resistance.

Macedonia and Yugoslavia say they are terrorists trying to carve up the region in their own interests.

Loaves of bread and cigarettes seem to constitute the main part of the guerrillas' supplies.

The small procession stops abruptly under some trees, waiting for a helicopter of Kosovo's NATO-led peacekeepers to pass overhead. But the group heads off again a few minutes later, the chopper still overhead and surely aware of the scene below.

But the smugglers seem not to care and continue their way along the trail, bags falling to the ground and being retrieved, mules slipping in the mud, unexplained pauses, men boasting of their latest sexual conquests.

Tension rises as they approach the border, faces become drawn and the men quicken their pace in silence.

The frontier line is on open ground, completely exposed. One of the smugglers, the only one carrying a weapon, scrambles to the top then urges the others to hurry across.

"The nearest Macedonian army position if 500 metres away. We keep an eye on it, but you never know," the man said once the group has crossed to the other side and descended toward the Macedonia village where the UCK has established its base, 15 minutes walk away.

The rebels were driven out of another border village, Tanusevci, last week, after heavy fighting with Macedonian forces.

The mule train enters the seemingly deserted village around midnight, the only sound the barking of dogs. But after a minute, armed men emerge from the shadows to welcome the group.

A few hours later, a man calling "Kosovo, Kosovo," comes to fetch the journalists due to head back across the border.

In the courtyard of a house, the mules are already harnessed and ready to go. But this time it is a group of civilians fleeing fighting near the Macedonian village of Brest who are to be escorted.

Silent, still half asleep, a handful of men and women with dazed children and a baby, have gathered for the departure. The oldest and frailest are put on the backs of the mules.

Only the tears of an old women, scared of the pack animal and begging the smuggler to put her back on the ground, breaks the silence as the convoy sets off again for Kosovo.

BUJANOVAC, Yugoslavia, March 12 (AFP) - NATO's Balkans mediator Peter Feith returned to southern Serbia on Monday after a weekend of intense but fruitless shuttle diplomacy to persuade ethnic Albanian rebels to sign a ceasefire with Yugoslav forces.

The rebels, fighting to break away from Serbia, rejected a ceasefire accord which would allow Yugoslav troops to deploy in part of the neutral buffer zone on the boundary with Kosovo which they control.

Feith, the personal envoy of NATO chief George Robertson, told reporters here: "We will have more news later on. We have to hope."

Sources close to the Serbian government delegation in Bujanovac, the main town near the buffer zone, said Feith needed both signatures by midnight to send them to Brussels for NATO approval, but gave no further details.

NATO's involvement is a reflection of the international community's growing concern at the spread of violence in the neighbouring Macedonia, the only Balkan republic to have emerged from the ex-Yugoslavia unscathed by war.

It also allows Belgrade to avoid direct contact with a group it terms "terrorist".

The rebels of the self-styled Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac (UCPMB) refused to sign up to an accord, objecting to a planned deployment of Serbian special police in a rebel-held village.

However Belgrade gave the plan its backing and Deputy Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic met with NATO officials to discuss redeployment in the buffer zone.

Covic was to meet KFOR commander General Carlo Cabigiosu and Kosovo's UN chief Hans Haekkerup in the town of Merdare on the northeastern boundary between the UN-run province and the rest of Serbia, Beta news agency said.

Covic praised the peacekeeping force KFOR's approach as "highly constructive."

"The approach was so constructive that I am convinced Yugoslavia and KFOR are becoming closer and better partners each day," he told reporters after the weekend talks.

NATO hopes that by allowing Yugoslav troops to enter the dangerous southern tip of the buffer zone, where Serbia, Kosovo and Macedonia converge, it can cut off arms shipments between the UCPMB and other ethnic Albanians fighting in northern Macedonia.

The cooperation between Belgrade and the alliance that bombed it just two years ago marks a significant shift for NATO, whose air war ended Yugoslav oppression of Kosovo Albanians.

NATO banned Yugoslav troops from entering the five-kilometre (three-mile) wide zone after it deployed across the boundary in Kosovo in June 1999.

Local Albanians and volunteers from Kosovo took advantage of the situation to form a well-armed force with hundreds of fighters dug into bunkers and trenches.

Serbian government spokeswoman Milena Kovacevic said rebels had again fired on Yugoslav troops in the predominantly Albanian Presevo Valley late Sunday, using mortars and machineguns, but causing no injuries.

As talks in Serbia were set to resume, the international community maintained diplomatic pressure to end the regional conflict, which Macedonia fears could shatter its own ethnically-mixed population.

Skopje says ethnic Albanians make up a quarter of its two million people but the guerrillas fighting in the northwest of the country, near Kosovo and Serbia, put the figure at more than one third.

The guerrillas of the self-styled National Liberation Army (UCK) have called for a fresh census and a new constitution for the former Yugoslav republic making it a "state of two constitutive people."

The guerrillas, who are not backed by the country's main Albanian parties, maintain that only this and mediation by the international community, can put an end to the discrimination they claim Macedonian Albanians suffer.

Bulgaria, which has offered Skopje military assistance, sent its Defence Minister Boiko Noev to Albania Monday to discuss the crisis. Macedonia lies between the two countries.

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov also said he would visit Belgrade, Kosovo and Macedonia March 18-20.

MERDARE, Yugoslavia _ NATO and Serbia agreed on a deal Monday that will allow Serbian police and Yugoslav army troops to return to the buffer zone on Kosovo's border, despite rebel threats to ``fight to the last man'' to keep the units out of the area.

``The final agreement has been reached,'' said the commander of NATO-led peacekeepers in Kosovo, Italian Lt. Gen. Carlo Cabigiosu, adding: ``In the very near future, the entry of (Yugoslav and Serbian) forces is envisaged for the southernmost sector in the borders'' between Yugoslavia and Macedonia.

The move is meant to enable Yugoslavia's forces to help the alliance curb weapons smuggling by ethnic Albanian insurgents in southern Yugoslavia's Presevo Valley and in neighboring Macedonia, where rebel attacks last week raised fears of a wider Balkan conflict. NATO already has increased its presence in areas of Kosovo bordering Macedonia, to intercept rebels using the Serbian province as a staging point for their Macedonian campaign.

Ethnic Albanian insurgents have been able to establish control over a strip of land adjoining Kosovo in the southern part of Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic, with relative impunity. That's because the 1999 Kosovo peace agreement permits only lightly armed Serbian police into the five-kilometer (three-mile) wide zone. The insurgents also are moving in and out of Macedonia from the zone.

Though separated by borders, the insurgents' struggle in southern Serbia and Macedonia is linked by common demands for more rights for ethnic Albanians who form the majority in the two adjoining regions. The ultimate aim appears to be linking the two regions to an independent Kosovo run by the ethnic Albanian majority, despite international opposition to sovereignty for the Serbian province.

Cabigiosu said that a 25-square kilometer (10-square-mile) area of land that adjoins Serbia's border with Macedonia will be opened to Yugoslav army troops and Serbian police. He did not, however, give a timeframe. Nor did he say how many army and police units would be able to operate in the region and what kind of weaponry they would be allowed.

Cabigiosu said that negotiators ``hope to reach a cease-fire'' with the rebels in the zone. That would be difficult, however, considering the vehement opposition by the rebels of the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac, or UCPMB, to permitting a larger Yugoslav and Serbian armed presence in the zone.

Cabigiosu announced agreement on the deal after meeting with Nebojsa Covic, a deputy prime minister of Yugoslavia's main republic Serbia. NATO officials said ethnic Albanian rebels in the five-kilometer-wide (three-mile-wide) buffer zone would be ``informed'' of the agreement. NATO had hoped to win the insurgents' agreement for a cease-fire before signing the deal with the Yugoslavs.

During weekend talks, however, rebel commanders in the buffer zone refused to agree to Yugoslavs entering the zone, established in June 1999 when NATO peacekeepers entered Kosovo after the 78-day NATO bombing campaign.

Rebel commander Shefket Musliu threatened over the weekend to ``fight to the last man'' to keep Yugoslav troops out of the zone. Addressing that threat Monday, Cabigiosu said: ``I hope that Albanians in the Presevo and Bujanovac area will understand that this is the time to move from armed conflict to peace.''

Covic, the Serbian official, pledged that Yugoslav and Serbian forces ``will not misuse the trust'' shown by NATO.

``We are not for war, and we will do everything necessary to solve the problem peacefully,'' he told reporters. Cabigiosu indicated NATO would police Belgrade's forces, saying, ``together, we will make sure that the conditions'' of the agreement would be respected.

Yugoslav troops pulled out of Kosovo following the NATO air campaign, which was launched to force then-President Slobodan Milosevic to halt his crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo.

The Presevo Valley is not part of Kosovo and was not covered by the U.N. and NATO peacekeeping mission.

NATO stepped up efforts to resolve the crisis in the Presevo Valley after a flare-up in ethnic fighting last week in Macedonia raised fears that ethnic Albanian militants might engulf the whole region in conflict.

Yugoslavia and Macedonia have blamed the renewed ethnic Albanian insurgency on NATO's failure to disarm militant groups in Kosovo.

In Macedonia, the country's leading ethnic Albanian politician called on ethnic Albanians to join a peace march set for Tuesday in the capital Skopje. Arben Xhaferi and his Democratic Party of Albanians, or DPA, said the country's ethnic Albanian community must show the world that ``another war in the Balkans cannot be tolerated.''

Xhaferi's party is a member of the Macedonian coalition government. That government, is alarmed at the possibility that support for the insurgents could spread through the ethnic Albanian community _ an estimated 25 percent of the country's 2 million people

SKOPJE, Macedonia _ Macedonia's top ethnic Albanian leader urged his ethnic brethren on Monday to take part in a peace march reflecting that most Albanians in the country oppose recent outbreaks of violence in the north.

In an appeal, Arben Xhaferi and his Democratic Party of Albanians said Albanians here, who make up almost a quarter of Macedonia's 2 million people, must show the world that, ``another war in the Balkans cannot be tolerated.''

Clashes between government troops and Albanian rebels in the north erupted with new intensity along the border with Yugoslavia's Kosovo province last week, heightening fears of a new major Balkan conflict in the making.

Ethnic Albanian rebels _ without clearly defined goals except demands for self rule and union with Kosovo _ are also fighting Yugoslav forces across the border in southern Serbia, in a buffer zone adjoining Kosovo.

Those clashes and skirmishes in Macedonia threaten a tenuous stability established in the region after the arrival of NATO and a U.N. mission in Kosovo in mid-1999. In Macedonia, three policemen were killed in fighting between Albanian rebels and state troops in the northern border village of Tanusevci last week.

``The violence in Tanusevci jeopardized ... the entire image of Albanians and threatened their natural alliance with the democratic nations of the West,'' Xhaferi said.

The Albanian leader also said that the armed conflict in the north was carried out by ``extremists,'' and was condemned by NATO, the United Nations, the United States and ``all relevant Albanian politicians who have stood up in the defense of Macedonia's territorial integrity and true Albanian interests.''

Out of the recent violence, Xhaferi said, Albanians have ``emerged as villains, as the guilty party and a destabilizing element for the region.''

This image must be countered, Xhaferi said, calling on Albanians to take part in the peace march Tuesday in the capital, Skopje.

In a veiled warning to the northern insurgents, Xhaferi said, ``no Albanian must permit such a gross mistake as another Balkan war,'' adding also that NATO would not allow Albanians to ``win such a war.''

``Concerned for the damaging effects of this violence, concerned primarily for the Albanian cause and the destiny of innocent people _ but without undermining just Albanian demands _ the DPA calls people to action, to rally behind a peaceful and just process that can benefit all,'' Xhaferi said.

A widespread ethnic Albanian insurgency could dramatically worsen lingering tensions between Macedonia's majority Slavs and the ethnic Albanian community. Macedonia was the only republic to break away from Yugoslavia without war, and although ethnic tensions persisted, they had not exploded into major violence prior to the recent skirmishes.

VIENNA, Austria _ NATO's moves to strengthen positions on the Macedonian border and allow Yugoslav troops back into the buffer zone around Kosovo could lead to the alliance's nightmare scenario: confrontation with ethnic Albanians whom the peacekeepers were sent to protect.

Both moves, which took place Thursday, are aimed at preventing Kosovo from becoming a haven for ethnic Albanians fighting for self-rule in Macedonia and in parts of Yugoslavia's main republic, Serbia, that have large Albanian-speaking populations.

Kosovo has been wracked by violence through the 1990s, as ethnic Albanians in the province fight to wrest it from Serbia, the largest republic in Yugoslavia.

In 1998, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic ordered a bloody crackdown on the separatist movement. The crackdown stopped only after a 78-day NATO bombing campaign in 1999.

After the bombing, international peacekeepers were sent in to protect ethnic Albanians, Yugoslav forces evacuated Kosovo and a buffer zone was set up around the province where only lightly armed police were allowed in.

However, ethnic Albanians guerrillas have since turned the buffer zone into a staging area for attacks on Serbian and Macedonian forces. The latest measures by NATO are meant to stop the violence.

But there are fears that they could also turn Kosovo's nearly 2 million ethnic Albanians against the peacekeepers themselves.

Much will depend on the reaction of Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders _ including Ibrahim Rugova and former Kosovo Liberation Army chief Hashim Thaci.

International officials fear that if Rugova and Thaci do not condemn the new ethnic Albanian unrest along Kosovo's boundaries, the situation could deteriorate with the arrival of spring _ the season when fighting in the Balkans has flared in the past.

So far, neither Rugova nor Thaci has spoken out publicly against the rebellion.

In the worst case scenario, U.S. and other international peacekeepers could wind up perceived as enemies and an obstruction to ethnic Albanian aspirations to unite Albanian-speaking regions of the Balkans.

Those aspirations _ including the Kosovo Albanian dream of independence _ were blunted by the NATO and United Nations move into the Yugoslav province two years ago.

The U.N. resolution that established the peacekeeping missions left the issue of Kosovo's final status undetermined. In the meantime, Kosovo is still considered part of Yugoslavia's main republic, Serbia. However, the one thing that binds all of Kosovo's factious political groups together is their resolve never to come under Serb rule again.

Washington and its allies had hoped that in time, ethnic Albanian passions would cool and some formula for self-rule under Yugoslav sovereignty could be found. There is little sign, however, that Kosovo Albanians are softening their opposition to remaining in Yugoslavia, despite the ouster of Milosevic by a democratic movement.

Instead, ethnic Albanians in the Presevo Valley, just outside Kosovo's boundaries, and in neighboring Macedonia have taken up arms _ clearly receiving support from their ethnic kinsmen in the U.N.-controlled province.

On the other hand, neither Washington nor its allies can stand by and watch rebel activity around Kosovo's borders. The West is courting Milosevic's successor, Vojislav Kostunica, in hopes of restoring stability to Yugoslavia after a decade of ethnic warfare.

Macedonia, with a large Albanian minority, is the logistical base for the Kosovo peacekeeping mission and borders NATO member Greece. NATO has long feared that instability in Macedonia could draw in Greece and Bulgaria, which had territorial claims to Macedonia that they have since officially renounced.

For this reason, NATO took the dramatic step Thursday of agreeing to let Yugoslav forces back into part of the southern end of the buffer zone around Kosovo to curb smuggling of weapons and ammunition by the ethnic Albanians.

That could set the stage for further clashes between the Yugoslavs and the ethnic Albanians _ a repeat of the Kosovo conflict. American troops moved Thursday into a Kosovo border village after ethnic Albanian rebels evacuated the area.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) _ Macedonia's foreign minister Srdjan Kerim on Monday urged the ethnic Albanian rebels in the north of his country to use democratic means, not violence, to achieve their goals.

``The extremists should not kill innocent people, not ... shoot at security forces, not create trouble on the border,'' he said after meeting with Sweden's Deputy Prime Minister Lena Hjelm-Wallen and Birgitta Dahl, the speaker of parliament.

``They should form their own party and try to impose their goals and their aims in our elections,'' Kerim added. ``They cannot impose an agenda of extremism and terrorism.''

The armed attacks in northern Macedonia by rebels demanding rights and privileges for the country's ethnic Albanian minority, have raised fears of a wider Balkan conflict only five months after the rise of a democratic government in Belgrade.

However, Albania has expressed support for Macedonia's handling of the situation since the attacks began last week.

``I met the Albanian foreign minister the day before I came to Stockholm and he has sent a very clear message supporting the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Macedonia. Albania is supporting the measures the Macedonian government is undertaking concerning the rights of minorities and Albanians in Macedonia,'' Kerim said.

About the Macedonian security forces' fight against the rebels he said, ``We managed to neutralize them, to localize them and at the same time not harm the population there, in spite of the casualties our security forces have had _four people dead _ during the operations they have undertaken.''

``We know how to differentiate between the bulk of the peaceful Albanian population there and those militant groups,'' he added.

The talks between Kerim and Swedish authorities focused on the ties between Macedonia and the European Union.

Nato says it is pressing ahead with attempts to broker a ceasefire agreement between Serbia and ethnic Albanian guerrillas operating in the demilitarised border zone around Kosovo.

Nato envoy Pieter Feith - who has been involved in days of shuttle diplomacy between the two sides - hopes to meet the rebels again later on Monday.

"I think we have to be patient," he told reporters after talks with Belgrade's top negotiator, Deputy Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic, on Sunday.

Mr Feith has so far failed to persuade the rebels to allow Serbian forces to police a southern part of the buffer zone, which the guerrillas have reportedly been using to infiltrate guns and fighters into Macedonia and southern Serbia.

More than 30 people have been killed in sporadic clashes in the buffer zone region separating Serbia and Kosovo over the past year.

Violence has spread south to the Kosovo-Macedonia border in recent weeks, prompting fears of escalating violence throughout the region.

Mr Feith spent much of Saturday at an ethnic Albanian military command in the heart of the mountainous wooded territory which the rebels occupy just east of Kosovo, but he left empty-handed.

One principal sticking point is the rebels' refusal to accept the deployment of Serbian forces in the southern ethnic Albanian village of Trnava, which they currently control.

A rebel commander said on Saturday that plans to allow special units of Serbian police access to the village were "not acceptable".

He said fighters of the Liberation Army for Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac (UCPMB) could not guarantee the Serbians' safety - a key component of Nato's proposals.

The Nato-led K-For peacekeepers want Serbian patrols to help curb weapons smuggling in parts of the southern buffer zone, partly in an effort to avoid getting sucked into conflict themselves with the rebels.

Yugoslavia blames Nato's failure to disarm militants in Kosovo for the recent upsurge in fighting.

"The international forces need to realise that they will either confront ethnic Albanian extremism or be defeated... and humiliated," Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic told the newspaper Glas.

Nato has until now allowed only lightly armed Serb police into the 5km-wide zone, giving local and Kosovo-based rebels freedom to establish military outposts within it.

Serbia insists rebels in Kosovo and Macedonia are seeking to join in a common homeland.

BUJANOVAC, Yugoslavia -- NATO says it is still confident it can broker a deal to end fighting between ethnic Albanian rebels and Yugoslav security forces along the border with Kosovo.

Leaders of the ethnic Albanians have so far rejected the ceasefire plan for the tense buffer zone in southern Serbia but they are expected to meet on Monday to discuss it further.

Meanwhile Russia's Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov has announced that he will visit Yugoslavia and neighbouring Macedonia from March 18-20 to try to help defuse tensions in the region.

NATO's special envoy Peter Feith spent the weekend in separate talks with a delegation from Serbia and a group of ethnic Albanians.

The Western alliance wants to end the violence which has spread out of Kosovo into Serbia proper and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia .

The main stumbling block for the rebels is NATO's decision to allow Yugoslav forces into the buffer zone near the Macedonian border to try to curb weapons smuggling to ethnic Albanian guerrillas operating there.

But Feith said on Monday he remained optimistic he could reach an agreement with the rebels.

"I would hope so, yes," he said when questioned in the town of Bujanovac, around 350 kilometres (220 miles) south of Belgrade.

"They are consulting their commanders and their leadership and we hope to be in contact with them a little bit later today."

Asked whether there was a deadline for a deal, he said: "I think we have to draw a conclusion by the middle of the day."

More than 30 people have been killed over the past year in sporadic fighting between Serbian security forces and ethnic Albanian rebels in the Presevo Valley.

Instability has spread over recent weeks with violence involving ethnic Albanians also breaking out on Kosovo's border with Macedonia.

NATO decided last week to let Yugoslav forces into part of the five kilometre (three mile)-wide buffer zone which flanks Kosovo's boundary with Serbia proper, close to where Kosovo also touches Macedonia.

NATO officials have said they would prefer to have a ceasefire in place before Yugoslav forces go into the zone but they insist it is not a prerequisite.

Feith promised an announcement later on Monday about when Yugoslav forces could enter the buffer zone.

The NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force in Kosovo said its commander, Lieutenant General Carlo Cabigiosu of Italy, would make a statement at the border later on Monday.

Russia's Ivanov will visit Yugoslavia's capital Belgrade, Kosovo and Macedonia during his visit which Russia's ITAR-Tass news agency says is being made at the request of President Vladimir Putin.

"I am going to discuss the situation in the region, questions of our bilateral relations and the current situation at the Kosovo stretch of the Yugoslav-Macedonian border," the agency quoted Ivanov as saying.

Russia has criticised ethnic Albanian rebels from Kosovo over recent violence on the border with Macedonia, which had previously avoided the bloodshed of its neighbours.

Moscow has historic and religious ties with the Serbs who dominate Yugoslavia and strongly opposed NATO's air strikes on Belgrade in 1999 over violence in Kosovo.

Like Yugoslavia and Macedonia, Russia blames the renewed insurgency by ethnic Albanians on NATO's failure to disarm militant groups in Kosovo.

Belgrade - Yugoslavia is Europe's most corrupt country, the head of the Serbian anti-graft programme, Predrag Jovanovic, said Monday in Belgrade.

Citing a survey of 90 countries conducted by the Transparency International (TI) organization, he said Yugoslavia occupied the second to the last place worldwide, Beta news agency reported.

TI regional director Miklos Marshall, speaking to journalists, described corruption as ``one of the greatest obstacles'' to foreign investment in Yugoslavia and to its development.

Jovanovic blamed former president Slobodan Milosevic's deposed regime for the level of corruption in Yugoslavia, but warned that mechanisms encouraging it have not yet been removed.

In Yugoslavia, corruption has become a part of everyday life, starting with small businesses seeking approvals and reportedly ending in huge official deals, such as the sale of the Serbian Telekom to Italian and Greek partners in 1997.

Offers of money or gifts are expected even when parents seek to enroll their children in schools and when seriously ill people need treatment in overcrowded and poorly equipped hospitals.

Bujanovac/Belgrade - The Yugoslav government and the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping mission in Kosovo Monday signed an agreement on the return of the Yugoslav army into a part of the buffer zone along Serbia's boundary with Kosovo, Beta news agency reported.

The document was signed by Nebojsa Covic, who heads the state committee in charge of the southern Serbia crisis, and Carlo Cabigiosu, the Italian general who commands KFOR.

The Yugoslav army would be allowed to return into a part of the buffer in the municipality of Presevo, along the Serbian part of the Yugoslav border with Macedonia, it was agreed.

LONDON, Mar 12, 2001 (Itar-Tass via COMTEX) -- Albanian fighters, who are now involved in active combat operations in the southern districts of Serbia and in Northern Macedonia, were trained with clandestine CIA backing in special camps within the U.S. sector of Kosovo. Washington expected to us these men to overthrow Milosevic. This was disclosed here by The Observer with reference to high-ranking European officers in KFOR.

They said that the Americans had allowed groups of Albanian separatists to be trained there, to bring in weapons, and to launch raids over the two borders. A KFOR battalion commander said that the CIA was permitted to give the green light to Kosovo separatists, whose task was to overthrow Milosevic. However, the United States proved unable to control the actions of these separatists after the collapse of the Milosevic regime.

This U.S. policy has provoked a serious split within KFOR commanding structures and aroused mistrust of the Washington administration among Europeans.

It is noted in London that these disclosures could place in an awkward position both the CIA and the White House, which, it appears, have no idea of the order that should exist in Europe. Moreover, they are not prepared to discuss these problems even with their closest NATO allies.

Bujanovac, 12 March 2001 (RFE/RL) -- A NATO envoy is expected to meet today with ethnic Albanian officials in a bid to secure a cease-fire between ethnic Albanian rebels and Serbian security forces in the Presevo Valley of southern Serbia.

NATO's Pieter Feith met with Serbian officials yesterday in Bujanovac, but not with ethnic Albanian representatives.

Ethnic Albanian negotiator Riza Halimi said the main difficulty is a demand by Belgrade for Yugoslav troops to be stationed in Trnava, a village in the buffer zone separating UN-administered Kosovo from the rest of Serbia. Ethnic Albanian militants have been mounting attacks on Serb security forces from the zone.

Meanwhile, Albanian Prime Minister Ilir Meta met with leaders of parties who represent Macedonia's Albanian ethnic minority.

Macedonian security forces have clashed recently with ethnic Albanian groups which Skopje claims entered its territory from the Serbian province of Kosovo.

Meta said he and the Albanian leaders agreed violence will only damage the image of Albanians.

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, March 12 (Reuters) - Ethnic Albanian guerrillas fighting Serb security forces in a buffer zone just outside Kosovo said on Monday they had agreed to cease fire for a week.

``The Albanian side signed the agreement today around 15:10 (1410 GMT),'' a source from the Liberation Army of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja said by telephone from rebel-held Konculj on the boundary between Kosovo and Serbia proper.

Sejdullah Kadriu, political representative of the group, which emerged about a year ago saying it was defending local Albanians against repression by the security forces of then- Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, said it was temporary.

``An agreement was signed for a ceasefire until March 19. During this week preparations for negotiations have to go on,'' he said. It was signed in Konculj by UCPMB Chief of Staff Shefket Musliu in the presence of NATO representative Peter Feith.

There was no immediate word on any signing by representatives of the Serbian government, which says the guerrillas are ``terrorists'' trying to grab territory. Feith has been shuttling between the two sides for the past few days.

BRUSSELS, March 12 (Reuters) - NATO has agreed to let Yugoslav forces take control of a Presevo valley area where ethnic Albanian guerrillas operate, but without using armoured personnel carriers, its Kosovo mission commander said on Monday.

Yugoslavia said this made it risky to deploy its army and police, who have lost 17 men killed in ethnic Albanian guerrilla attacks in the past year.

It noted that the troops of NATO's Kosovo peacekeeping mission KFOR regularly travel in bullet-and-grenade proof APCs, although there has been no fighting in Kosovo since they arrived in summer 1999.

The Presevo Valley guerrillas, numbering several hundreds, are armed with automatic weapons, heavy machineguns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars.

In the first stage of a ``phased and conditioned'' return to a no-go border zone imposed by NATO in 1999, a number of Yugoslav Army frontier guards and Serbian Interior Ministry police will enter a square of Serbian land five km (three miles) long by five km wide where the valley meets the Macedonian border.

The immediate aim is to close an unprotected border gateway exploited by the guerrillas, who can move around in the ``Ground Safety Zone'' with impunity. NATO has said a ceasefire would be an important but not imperative condition for the operation.

General Carlo Cabigiosu, commander of NATO's KFOR peacekeeping force in Kosovo, announced an accord with Yugoslav officials in the border village of Merdare on Monday to let Serb forces back into the 25 square km area ``in the next few days.''

NATO SETS CONDITIONS FOR DEPLOYMENT

Cabigiosu, who has authority to set, and change, conditions under which the Yugoslav forces operate in the zone, described to Monday's Corriere della Sera newspaper the initial conditions for their deployment.

``There are both military and ethical limits,'' he said. Local ethnic Albanians would obviously be apprehensive because of the past record of Serb forces in Kosovo.

``However, we have demanded that they do not occupy houses, do not enter villages, do not receive backing from armoured cars or use rocket launchers and antitank weapons,'' Cabigiosu said.

``On the other hand, we have allowed them to use mortars and they will also be allowed to intervene, in coordination with our command, with artillery from behind their lines. Finally, there will be no helicopters and above all no mines,'' he added.

Cabigiosu said exchanges of fire could be foreseen but he hoped the Serb response would be proportionate, such as if Italy's Carabinieri police were rounding up Calabrian bandits.

NATO diplomats said Belgrade was anxious to prove to the West that it could carry out the operation without igniting serious conflict, but senior figures in Serbia were uneasy.

``The Yugoslav Army will be in great danger since it is not allowed to enter the area with heavy arms and armoured cars,'' said former Yugoslav Army commander Momcilo Perisic.

``I do not understand why the international community has not allowed this since its own troops in Kosovo are all in armoured cars,'' said Perisic, now deputy premier in Serbia's reformist government, in an interview with the daily Blic.

Serbian Prime Minister Zorna Djindjic also criticised the geographical limits of the return permitted by NATO, which will put Serb troops and police between two hostile forces.

``On one side there will be Albanians from Kosovo, on the other Albanians from Macedonia,'' he was quoted as saying.

NATO military sources said the conditions for the Yugoslav operation would be flexible and would not necessarily be made public. It was not clear if there were any guerrilla strong points in the zone, or if it was merely used as a corridor.

Perisic told Blic he was concerned that the guerrillas could deliberately attack Yugoslav forces simply to provoke conflict.

``I want to believe that the international comunity will prevent them from it, as it has the necessary mechanisms... If the international community bombed Serbs, it could bomb ethnic Albanians as well,'' he said.

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, March 12 (Reuters) - A member of an armed ethnic Albanian group involved in a standoff with Macedonian security forces said on Monday the government had sent in reinforcements but that his group would fight on.

A man who gave his name as Daja Ali said that he and his fellow fighters, operating somewhere near Macedonia's border with Kosovo, were well equipped despite efforts by Macedonia and international peacekeepers in Kosovo to seal them off.

He also said many Albanians were joining the group, which emerged about two months ago in the isolated Macedonian mountain village of Tanusevci on the border with Kosovo.

It was not possible to verify his comments, made by telephone from the gunmen's headquarters. He did not disclose the location.

Initial Western estimates put the size of the group, which drew world attention two weeks ago, at about 200.

``The National Liberation Army is growing day by day with people from everywhere where Albanians live,'' he said. ``We are doing well, are well supplied with food, well-armed and will respond strongly to any attack by the Macedonian army.''

A Reuters journalist on the road leading from the Macedonian capital to Tanusevci said he saw a large police convoy heading in that direction on Monday.

``Macedonian forces have reinforced their positions,'' Ali said. ``We are staying in ours.''

Kosovo's peacekeepers said later they had heard firing. ``We've been monitoring mortar fire in Tanusevci,'' Captain Elaine Cramer said later from the U.S. Bondsteel base.

U.S.-led troops pushed the fighters from Tanusevci last week after Macedonia accused the NATO-led KFOR peacekeepers of not doing enough to cut them off. They are now believed to have moved elsewhere in Macedonia.

The Macedonian government, which says the fighters are ``terrorists'' set on upsetting the former Yugoslav republic's inter-ethnic ties, has rejected its call for negotiations, but is reluctant to crush it for fear of a popular backlash.

Albanian politicians in the multi-ethnic coalition government have also criticised them, saying they aim to bypass the democratic process.

The gunmen, who have clashed sporadically with the security forces for two weeks, issued their first detailed political demands at the weekend, calling for equal rights with Macedonians, who make up two thirds of the population.

``FIGHT UNTIL FINAL VICTORY''

``The NLA strategy is to fight until final victory,'' Ali said. ``The Macedonian government didn't want to fulfil our rights for a long time and we were forced to take up arms.''

``All Albanian mechanisms in Macedonia must support this fighting because we are fighting for the right issue. We are not terrorists and have nothing against civilians,'' he said.

Ali said the situation had been quiet since clashes last week, including a Thursday attack on a convoy of police officials in which a policeman was killed, bringing casualties on the Macedonian side to four.

Two Albanians have also been killed and more than 1,300 people fled the area around Tanusevci since skirmishes began.

KFOR pulled out some of the forces it used to take over Tanusevci but continued to patrol the border area.

``Modern armies don't need to stand shoulder to shoulder,'' a Western diplomat said.

But one villager on the Kosovo side of the border said the guerrillas would not be easy to dislodge.

``It's spring. All the leaves will soon be out,'' he said, referring to the thickly forested mountains that run along the border. ``Do you think you can kill all the flowers that are coming out? Only the snow can do that.''

STOCKHOLM, March 12 (Reuters) - Gunmen operating on the border between Macedonia and Kosovo have been neutralised and a weekend without violence marked a turning point in the tense area, Macedonia's foreign minister said on Monday.

``I believe that the situation during the weekend, which was calm without accidents and without shootings...will now be the turning point and that we will have more positive developments,'' Srgan Kerim told a news conference.

``I believe the measures so far have been efficient. We managed to neutralise them, to localise them, and at the same time not to harm the population there,'' Kerim said.

Four Macedonian security troops and one of the gunmen, believed to be ethnic Albanians from a group calling itself the National Liberation Army, have been killed in recent clashes that have raised fears in the West of a new Balkan explosion.

Kerim, on a visit to Sweden which holds the rotating European Union presidency, said action taken by the United Nations, NATO and the EU would isolate the gunmen.

``These extremists will be politically and diplomatically isolated. Their agenda is not our agenda. They cannot impose on us violence as a method of achieving political goals,'' he said.

Kerim said he believed the gunmen wanted to transform Macedonia into a federal state with separate parts for ethnic Albanians and Macedonians.

``That would be the wrong direction...a split into two different and opposed entities. That would not work,'' he said.

Kerim noted that the ethnic Albanian population in Macedonia was represented politically by its own legal parties and in the coalition government.

``Our agenda is democracy, our agenda is regional cooperation,'' he said, adding that ethnic Albanians in his country and the Albanian government supported this approach.

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, March 12 (Reuters) - A hitherto obscure ethnic Albanian group fighting on the border of Kosovo has signalled its ambition to become a political force in Macedonia -- exactly what the international commmunity feared.

A communique faxed at the weekend to Deutsche Welle radio in Germany in the name of the group, the National Liberation Army, contained concrete demands for the first time.

The shadowy group, held responsible for violence along the Macedonia-Kosovo border that has claimed at least five lives, first emerged in January when it said it carried out a grenade attack on a Macedonian police station that killed an officer.

The NLA's demands were more moderate than earlier speculated -- calling for equal rights for ethnic Albanians in Macedonia while respecting the small Balkan state's integrity, countering talk they were separatists bent on creating a ``Greater Albania.''

The gunmen and their backers are clearly aiming to tap into the political mainstream in Macedonia where Albanians, one-third of the population, see unity with ethnic kin in nearby Kosovo and Albania as more of a dream than a practical political aim.

``Of course if Albanians were in one state then they would not have many of the everyday problems they have because of their ethnicity,'' Arben Xhaferi, leader of the Albanian party in Macedonia's ruling coalition, told Reuters last week.

``But happiness does not start here because even in mono-ethnic states there are troubles with democracy and individual welfare. Very often conditions there can be even harder,'' he said, in an apparent reference to often-turbulent Albania. The apparent moderation of the NLA's demands will not make them any less unsettling to Western diplomats wondering why they have to be pursued with violence and concerned such agitation will tip Macedonia's fragile inter-ethnic harmony into chaos.

Xhaferi says the armed group that emerged on the border with Kosovo two months ago threatens his party's attempts to win more rights for Albanians in Macedonia through political means, just as those efforts are bearing fruit.

Albanians living in the comparatively wealthy Tetovo region in the west of the country, where an Albanian now runs the police force, tend to agree with Xhaferi that the ballot box, not the bullet, is the way forward.

``The best way is to get up in parliament,'' said Bardhyl Isa, a student at Tetovo University, an Albanian institution finally permitted to exist after years of campaigning, though the Macedonian authorities still do not recognise its diplomas.

For Isa, the clashes between the gunmen and the security forces in and around the border village of Tanusevci, where the population is poor and isolated, are a source of concern.

``If the situation starts to get heavy then police will go out onto the streets,'' he said. If things got really bad, he would fight, ``but I hope it won't happen.''

The prospect of such people being drawn into conflict has alarmed the international community, which sees Macedonia as a beacon of hope in a region ravaged by war.

The guerrillas were pushed out of Tanusevci last week by a U.S.-led contingent of the peacekeeping force that has been in Kosovo since NATO intervened to halt Serb repression of ethnic Albanians there. Low-level clashes between gunmen and Macedonian forces go on.

International officials have issued a chorus of condemnation of what they call ``extremists'' and NATO Secretary General George Robertson has sent high-level missions to the region.

SERBIA CONFLICT SEEN LINKED

Diplomats fear the NLA could link with ethnic Albanian insurgents elsewhere, creating a swathe of rebel activity along the borders of the Yugoslav province.

Serb police and ethnic Albanian rebels have been fighting for more than a year in a buffer zone set up in Serbia alongside Kosovo, originally to keep Yugoslav forces at a safe distance.

The guerrillas there, who call themselves the Liberation Army of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja (UCPMB), deny any links with the shadowy group that appeared in Tanusevci.

But diplomats fear weapons, supplies and the high morale of men who feel they are fighting for a cause could be filtering through to the Macedonian group.

The UCPMB emerged, vowing to defend the Albanian population living just outside Kosovo, when Slobodan Milosevic was in power in Belgrade and Serbs driven from Kosovo by vengeful Albanians were taking it out on the locals.

Western leaders fear that now Milosevic has gone, the conflict may undermine his reformist successors. In Macedonia the conflict would not be confined to a relatively small area like the five km (three-mile) buffer zone in Serbia but could tear the whole country apart.

While the gunmen on the border kept quiet, the international community and the Macedonian government could dismiss them as smugglers and criminals marginalised by the democratic trends in both Kosovo and Macedonia.

Now, as Prime Minister Ljubco Giorgevski said last week, the situation is becoming ``more complex.''