Former prime minister Brian Mulroney, chairman of Sun Media Corporation, has agreed to act as part of an international advisory council to the Serb Republic.

Mr. Mulroney met with Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, over the weekend.

In an interview yesterday after his return from Davos, Mr. Mulroney said the recently elected Serb leader sought him out and proposed the idea of taking part in an advisory council that is expected to include political and business leaders from around the world.

He agreed to assist the country in the unpaid, advisory role on economic and political matters.

``I would think the reconstruction is almost total,'' Mr. Mulroney said yesterday of the challenge that faces Serbia.

``They have to re-establish a democracy there, work a functioning democracy; they're going to have to begin the process of creating a climate which will attract foreign investment and ensure that the rule of law is respected; and adopt international positions that are compatible with those steeped in democracy.

``It's a lot of work,'' he said. ``Which is one of the reasons why, when he (Mr. Djindjic) asked me if I would be of some assistance, I said OK. They have a big job to do.''

In Serbian news accounts of the meeting, Mr. Djindjic referred to Mr. Mulroney as a ``great friend of the Serbian people.''

According to the newspaper, Danas, Mr. Mulroney's task will be to assist Serbia as it tries to ``reintegrate into the world market.''

In Ottawa, a spokesperson for the Yugoslav Embassy said she had read reports of Mr. Mulroney's agreement to act as a government advisor, but did not have any official statement to offer on the subject.

Word of Mr. Mulroney's appointment spread quickly in Canada's Serbian community, whose members yesterday expressed mixed feelings about the news.

``Mr. Mulroney is a very competent man, although at this moment, he's not liked by many Canadians outside the Serbian community,'' said Bora Dragasevic, president of the Toronto-based Serbian Shield Society.

``But we hope he will be able to help,'' he said, ``specifically in the economic renewal of Serbia.''

Mr. Mulroney, to his credit, was one of the few prominent Canadians to criticize Canada for its role in the NATO campaign against Yugoslavia, Mr. Dragasevic noted.

During the bombing campaign, Mr. Mulroney said Canada and the other NATO countries should have sought approval from the United Nations Security Council before launching military action aimed at halting Serb violence in Kosovo.

``His (Mr. Mulroney's) speaking against the bombing is a very positive thing in the eyes of the Serbian community,'' said Mr. Dragasevic.

During the campaign, Mr. Mulroney also told an interviewer that the experience has been ``very painful'' for his wife, Mila, who has had to watch her former country being destroyed.

Mila Mulroney, who is of Serbian descent, was born in Sarajevo and moved with her family to Canada when she was four years old.

Some members of Canada's Serb community expressed reservations about Mr. Mulroney's appointment. ``I'm very, very nervous when Mr. Mulroney's name is mentioned,'' said Slobodanka Borjevic, president of Ottawa's Serbian Heritage Society.

In the early 1990s, when Mr. Mulroney was still prime minister, she said, Canada was the first country to ask the United Nations to intervene militarily in the former Yugoslavia. Canada sent peacekeepers to both Croatia and Bosnia.

``Everything I know about Mulroney doesn't make me certain he's the right person,'' Ms. Borjevic said.

Mr. Mulroney was leader of the Progressive Conservative party and served as prime minister for nearly nine years, until 1993.

Since leaving office, he has sat on a handful of corporate boards and a half-dozen international advisory boards.

As adviser to the Serbian government, Mr. Mulroney will likely be asked for advice on how to secure international reconstruction and development packages.

``The country is in such doldrums, at least partly due to the NATO bombing campaign, that without fairly substantial injections of external capital, it will be very hard for Serbia to pull itself up by its own bootstraps,'' said Serge Trifkovic, a foreign affairs editor of the magazine, Chronicles, and a noted expert in Yugoslav affairs.

``I expect his (Mr. Mulroney's) focus will be on credits, on aid, on investments,'' he said.

Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic came to power in December's parliamentary elections, two months after Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, leader of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) alliance, took control of the Yugoslav federation from Slobodan Milosevic.

A dramatic October uprising forced Mr. Milosevic to accept his election defeat and concede his federal Yugoslav presidency to Mr. Kostunica.

The country's economy, however, remains in tatters and its fragile power grid is in desperate need of an overhaul.

THE ailing head of a US military clean-up of depleted uranium munitions after the Gulf War visited Westminster yesterday to warn MPs of the dangers he believes that they pose to the health of troops and civilians.

Doug Rokke, a combat health physicist, blames his own lung disease on exposure to depleted uranium (DU) during the clean-up exercise, and says that one in five of the team he led in Iraq is now dead as a result of inhaling uranium dust.

Dr Rokke, a major in the US Army Reserve and former head of the Pentagon. s Depleted Uranium Project, backed a call by backbench MPs for a government moratorium on the use of DU weapons until a full epidemiological inquiry is carried out.

Alice Mahon, the backbench Labour MP for Halifax, has tabled an early day motion in the Commons calling for the Government to fund an inquiry into the weapons, which are blamed by many veterans of the Gulf War and the Balkans for illnesses ranging from cancer to kidney damage, lung disease and exhaustion.

Depleted uranium is a by-product of nuclear energy production used in Nato tank-busting shells. However, impact with tanks and other armoured vehicles leads to up to 40 per cent of each shell being reduced to a fine dust of solid uranium particles, which can be inhaled or swallowed with grave implications, Dr Rokke said.

Of 100 members of the team which examined Iraqi vehicles which had been targeted with DU munitions, at least 20 have now died from lung diseases and many more are seriously ill, he said.

"There is only one individual out of the whole team who I know of that is not ill," Dr Rokke said. "The rest have respiratory problems, rashes, kidney disease and cancer.

"I have been measured as having 5,000 times the permissible level of uranium in my body and have reactive airway disease due to uranium poisoning. Members of the team have had children with birth defects."

Dr Rokke and his team used only face masks for protection, as they were assured that DU posed no risk. But they quickly became convinced that the uranium dust was highly dangerous if inhaled.

In 1995, after further investigations at testing ranges in Nevada, Dr Rokke completed safety recommendations on the use of DU, which advised that respiratory gear and a full skin protection suit should be worn by anyone going within 25 metres of DU shells after impact. He produced training materials for troops likely to be exposed to the substance, but believes that many Nato troops did not receive adequate training before entering Kosovo after the 1999 conflict.

Dr Rokke, a Vietnam veteran, described the continued use of DU ammunition in the absence of a full-scale survey of their impact on the health of troops and civilians as "a crime against God, a crime against humanity, a war crime".

He said: "Quite apart from the safety of our troops, it is a moral and ethical issue. You can. t take radioactive waste from a secure facility in the US or the UK and simply dump it in places where it will be picked up by children. The DU fired at Iraq and the former Yugoslavia will remain a danger for ever, unless it is fully removed and disposed of."

Mrs Mahon said: "The only way the Government can allay fears about DU to rest is to fund a full and independent study. An epidemiological study and urine analysis for DU will take some time. Meanwhile, the Government should impose a complete moratorium on the production and use of DU shells."

BELGRADE, YUGOSLAVIA -- Serbia's new government fired two top police officers loyal to Slobodan Milosevic, and the justice minister said Tuesday that the former president will end up in front of the UN war crimes tribunal soon.

Milosevic's position could be growing more precarious despite resistance by President Vojislav Kostunica and others in the pro-democracy leadership to tribunal demands that the former leader and others indicted for war crimes be extradited to The Hague.

The Serbian government fired Vlastimir Djordjevic and Obrad Stevanovic, both police generals and deputy police ministers in charge of security under the Milosevic regime.

Amid the dismissals, Serbian Justice Minister Vladan Batic said that Milosevic would eventually be extradited to The Hague to face the UN court that indicted him on suspicion of war crimes in Kosovo.

"Milosevic will end up in The Hague," Batic said. "The question is whether that will be now or a bit later. He will go there either voluntarily or the authorities will hand him over."

His comment was at odds with previous statements by leaders of Yugoslavia and Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic that effectively determines policy for the country.

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Jan 31 (AFP) - Nine French soldiers from the NATO-led Kosovo force (KFOR) were injured Wednesday in a grenade attack in the northern Kosovo town of Kosovska Mitrovica, a UN spokesman said.

Ethnic Albanian protesters threw the grenade, spokesman Michael Keats said.

The violence followed clashes at the weekend in which an ethnic Albanian youth was killed in a grenade attack, stoking tensions between the Serb and Albanian communities in the town.

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Jan 31 (AFP) - KFOR troop reinforcements were sent to the northern town of Kosovska Mitrovica Wednesday to help quell tensions in a tense standoff between Albanians and Serbs, KFOR's regional commander said.

General Carlo Cabigiosu, commander of the NATO-led Kosovo force (KFOR), said he was sending in extra troops to reinforce those who came under attack Tuesday as they kept thousands of angry and violent demonstrators apart.

Thirteen KFOR soldiers were injured when they were caught between the two brawling communities.

The soldiers, who were deployed on a bridge between the two crowds, came under a hail of petrol bombs and stones thrown by angry ethnic Albanians.

The ethnic Albanian demonstrators had gathered in the divided town to protest the killing the previous day of a 15-year-old Albanian youth in a Serb grenade attack.

The protest by around 1,000 Albanians quickly escalated into a tense standoff with Serbs around the town's main bridge linking the Serb zone to the north of the Ibar river with the Albanian area on the south side.

KFOR enforced a curfew on Tuesday in the confidence zone in the centre of Mitrovica -- the part of the town where stricter security controls are enforced.

Cabigiosu said that the reinforcements to be deployed would be Italian, German, British and Scandinavian troops, backing up the French-commanded northern brigade of KFOR.

No arrests were made after Tuesday's violence, Cabigiosu added. Monday's grenade blast killed one and injured five, one of them seriously. In reprisal, Albanians seized a vehicle used by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, seriously injuring one of its Serb occupants.

STOCKHOLM, Jan 31 (AFP) - The European Union pressed Belgrade Wednesday to deliver Slobodan Milosevic to international authorities for trial on war crimes charges as Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica met Swedish officials here for talks on that and other issues.

Swedish Prime Minister Goeran Persson, whose country currently holds the six-month rotating presidency of the EU, urged Kostunica to agree to the extradition of his disgraced predecessor during a working lunch.

Milosevic and four of his top allies have been indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for war crimes allegedly committed against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in 1999.

The ICTY chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte visited Belgrade last week, but failed to win a pledge from Kostunica that war crimes suspects would be surrendered to the court.

While Del Ponte insists that war crimes suspects should face trial in The Hague, Belgrade officials insist that indictees of Yugoslav nationality must be judged in Yugoslavia, citing a constitutional ban on extradition.

EU officials have described resolution of the Milosevic question as a top priority.

Persson and Kostunica were also expected to discuss tensions in southern Serbia.

Deadly armed clashes between ethnic Albanian separatists and Serbian security forces in and around a buffer zone between southern Serbia and Kosovo have escalated in recent weeks, and Kostunica rushed home Tuesday from Switzerland to deal with the latest incidents there.

Also included on Wednesday's agenda were issues aimed at fostering democracy and stability in the Balkans region and fortifying relations between the former Yugoslavia and the rest of Europe, officials said.

Earlier, Kostunica met with Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf for a half-hour of one-on-one talks, royal spokeswoman Catherine Broms said.

PODGORICA, Yugoslavia, Jan 31 (AFP) - Former Yugoslav prime minister Momir Bulatovic, an ally of ex-strongman Slobodan Milosevic, resigned Wednesday as leader of the Socialist People's Party (SNP), the main opposition force in Montenegro.

SNP official Vuksan Simonovic told reporters that Bulatovic's resignation was "final."

The resignation capped a growing rift which has opened in the SNP, once allied with Milosevic's Socialist Party of Serbia in the federal Yugoslav government, since the popular uprising in October which forced Milosevic to resign as Yugoslav president.

When Vojislav Kostunica took office as federal president, the SNP joined his Democratic Opposition of Serbia coalition in the Yugoslav government, breaking with Milosevic's Socialists.

But the party has since split over Bulatovic's continuing links with the ousted president, ties rivals said were damaging the Montenegrin party's image. Montenegro is Serbia's junior partner in the Yugoslav federation.

In resigning, Bulatovic told his party's officials that he "admitted guilt" in remaining loyal to Milosevic, but added: "I do not regret it," according to local media reports.

"On the contrary, I am proud of what I have done," he was quoted as saying.

The SNP, the main opposition to the independence-minded Montenegrin government of President Milo Djukanovic, said it would hold a congress on February 24 to discuss its future.

It was expected that Predrag Bulatovic, one of three SNP deputy-presidents, might take over the leadership of the party. He is not related to the former premier.

If the SNP splits into two parties due to the rift with Bulatovic, it could provide a boost to Djukanovic's supporters ahead of the parliamentary elections set for April 22.

Djukanovic and his allies have said the future parliament will decide on the date of a possible referendum on independence for Montenegro.

The latest opinion polls show Montenegro's 650,000-strong population divided over its future, with about 50 percent supporting independence and 40 percent against, with the rest undecided.

The tiny mountainous republic is dwarfed by Serbia, which, including UN-administered Kosovo, has a population of around 10 million.

BRUSSELS, Jan 31 (AFP) - Belgian military authorities confirmed on Wednesday that three more of its soldiers who served in the Balkans are suffering from cancer.

The announcement brings to 12 the number of cancer cases reported among Belgian troops who served as peacekeepers in the Balkans. However, unlike troops from other countries, the Belgian units were not deployed in areas which came under fire from shells using depleted uranium (DU).

Several governments, whose troops were in the affected zones, have sent experts to the region to investigate possible links between toxic dust created by NATO's use of DU shells and the deaths through cancer of a number of former peacekeeping personnel.

The Belgian defence ministry, however, said that it had not yet found any link between the incidence of cancer in its servicemen and the Balkan missions.

Furthermore, the three new cases all relate to different types of the disease - leukemia, cancer of the colon and a bone tumour.

Earlier this month, three other Belgian soldiers who took part in peacekeeping operations in Kosovo and Bosnia filed a lawsuit in Brussels claiming involuntary poisoning.

Both NATO and the United States, whose air force fired the suspect shells, have insisted that the ammunition does not pose any threat to peacekeeping troops or civilians living near the target sites.

BELGRADE, Jan 31 (AFP) - Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic said he would travel to Washington on Thursday at the invitation of the US Secretary of State Colin Powell for talks on the situation in the tense buffer zone near Kosovo, the state agency Tanjug reported Wednesday.

Djindjic said the talks would touch upon on the Kosovo itself -- a UN-administered Serbian province -- as well as a "concept of cooperation" with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and economic cooperation, the agency said.

Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic and four of his top allies have been indicted by The Hague-based ICTY for war crimes allegedly committed against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo in 1999.

While ICTY officials insist that war crimes suspects should face trial in The Hague, officials here insist that indictees of Yugoslav nationality must be judged in the country, citing a constitutional ban on extradition.

31 January, 2001

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Yugoslavia (AP)_ NATO-led peacekeepers fired tear gas into a crowd of hundreds of Kosovo Albanians on Wednesday, trying to subdue rioters tossing stones and Molotov cocktails.

French peacekeepers in full riot gear formed a cordon on the bridge that divides Kosovska Mitrovica into an ethnic Albanian southern section and a predominantly Serb northern part. The soldiers fired volleys of tear gas and stun grenades at regular intervals, trying to prevent the crowd from surging across the bridge.

Clouds of smoke rose and loud pops rattled the crowd as peacekeepers responded to each flurry of rocks. Crowds of Serbs gathered on the northern side, watching the standoff.

Any collapse of the French line could lead to direct clashes between the ethnic Albanians and the Serbs.

Soldiers poured into the divided city to reinforce NATO-led peacekeepers. NATO's commander in Kosovo, Lt. Gen. Carlo Cabigiosu, pledged that others on standby were ready to move in _ if necessary.

``We are ready to take some stones, but certainly we are not going to use rifles unless'' the lives of soldiers are in danger, he said.

Cabigiosu said that soldiers from Germany, Italy, Britain and some Scandinavian countries were ready to move on two hours notice. Turkish soldiers had already moved into the city.

The melee marked the second time this week that this troubled industrial town was wracked by unrest. On Tuesday, ethnic Albanians enraged by the death of a youth the day before clashed with peacekeepers and police, injuring 13 peacekeepers.

Demonstrators gathered Wednesday at midday, confronting peacekeepers already on high alert. Demonstrators have targeted the French soldiers, whom they perceive as being pro-Serb.

The standoff unraveled quickly. Doctors at a hospital near the bridge said 34 people had been injured by a variety of objects.

Five bystanders carried one ethnic Albanian, Hakif Mehmeti, 20, into the medical center as blood gushed from his face.

''As I was trying to speak to them, a gendarme approached me and hit me with a truncheon,'' he said as a surgeon stitched his skull. ``I hate the French.''

Cabigiosu urged local ethnic Albanian and Serb leaders, ``to take responsibility in trying to calm down the situation.''

Faruk Spahija, a local ethnic Albanian political leader, said that he was trying to restrain the crowds of mostly young people. Still, he said that after months of division and economic stagnation, frustrations were high.

Separated by the Ibar River into hostile ethnic camps, Kosovska Mitrovica remains the province's most tense town, more than 1 1/2 years after large-scale fighting between the two groups ended with the pullout of Serb forces in exchange for an end to NATO bombing.

Kosovo came under the control of NATO and the United Nations in 1999 after the end of airstrikes launched to stop former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown on ethnic Albanians.

It remains a province of Serbia, the larger of Yugoslavia's two republics.

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Yugoslavia (AP)_ NATO-led peacekeepers fired tear gas into a crowd of hundreds of Kosovo Albanians on Wednesday, trying to control rioters tossing stones and Molotov cocktails, officials said.

Turkish soldiers poured into the divided city to reinforce NATO-led peacekeepers.

Lt. Gen. Carlo Cabigiosu, commander of NATO-led peacekeepers in Kosovo, said more troops would be sent to Kosovska Mitrovica, the troubled industrial city 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Kosovo's capital, Pristina.

German, Italian and British soldiers were on standby, ready to move on two hours notice, he said.

``We are ready to take some stones, but certainly we are not going to use rifles unless'' the lives of soldiers were in danger, he said.

Ethnic Albanians began clashing with peacekeepers and police Tuesday after a 15-year-old ethnic Albanian was killed in a grenade attack the day before, U.N. spokesman Michael Keats said.

Soldiers fired stun grenades and tear gas Tuesday to keep ethnic Albanians from storming a bridge leading to their town's Serb community. Thirteen French soldiers were injured and five NATO vehicles were set on fire during the melee.

Cabigiosu urged local ethnic Albanian and Serb leaders ``to take responsibility in trying to calm down the situation.''

Separated by the Ibar River into hostile ethnic camps, Kosovska Mitrovica remains the province's most tense town, more than 1 1/2 years after large-scale fighting between the two groups was ended with the pullout of Serb forces in exchange for an end to NATO bombing.

Kosovo came under the control of NATO and the United Nations in 1999 after the NATO airstrikes aimed at ending the Serbs' persecution of ethnic Albanians under former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. It remains a province of Serbia, the larger of Yugoslavia's two republics.

There have been violent clashes for a second day running between ethnic Albanians and Nato peace-keeping troops in the town of Mitrovica, in northern Kosovo.

French soldiers fired tear-gas and stun grenades to disperse hundreds of demonstrators, some of whom threw stones and petrol bombs at the troops.

Turkish peace-keepers were sent in as reinforcements and German, British and Italian troops have been put on stand-by to help out.

The trouble flared up after the killing on Monday of a fifteen-year-old ethnic Albanian boy in a grenade attack in the Serb-dominated northern part of the town. The peace-keepers have been stopping the Albanian protesters crossing a bridge over the River Ibar that divides the town.

The commander of the Nato-led international force, Lieutenant-General Carlo Cabigiosu, has called on local Albanian and Serb leaders to calm the situation.

The Montenegrin parliament is debating whether to dissolve itself and hold fresh elections - a move that could precede a referendum on independence.

The Montenegrin President, Milo Djukanovic, has said that a referendum on breaking with Yugoslavia could be held soon after an election in late April - despite calls from the international community not to sever ties with Serbia.

Government officials predict that parliament will back the proposal for an April election, and that the referendum will be held in June.

The BBC's Paul Wood, in Belgrade, says Mr Djukanovic, currently on a visit to Washington, is probably being told by the Americans to reconsider.

But he says Mr Djukanovic's supporters believe that once independence is achieved, the international community will have no choice but to accept it.

The Montenegrin parliament is also preparing other measures, such as a customs bill which will formalise the existing control that the republic has over its borders and describe Montenegro as an independent, sovereign and internationally recognised state.

The head of the main Montenegrin party opposed to independence, the Socialist Peoples' Party, resigned on Wednesday, as part of its preparations for an election.

Momir Bulatovic, Yugoslav prime minister until the fall of Slobodan Milosevic in October, had been criticised for his close ties with the former leader.

The Socialist People's Party is the second largest in Montenegro, and if it wins a majority in the 78-seat parliament, it will block the plans for secession.

It wants to shed its pro-Milosevic image and plans to choose a new leader at a congress on 24 February.

Opinion polls commissioned by the government show a majority in favour of independence, but not an overwhelming one.

Some people are so bitterly opposed to breaking up what remains of the Yugoslav federation that there are fears that the passions which led to the bitter civil war over just this issue in the 1920s could be of rekindled.

Thousands of of supporters of the pro-independence Liberal Alliance of Montenegro demonstrated in Podgorica on Saturday, waving the traditional Montenegrin war flag - red with a white cross.

Meanwhile, Mr Djukanovic's office has strongly denied Yugoslav press reports that Italy is preparing to issue a warrant for his arrest on charges of Mafia and smuggling activities.

The president's spokeswoman said that such claims were part of propaganda efforts to undermine the republic's progress towards independence.

Belgrade (dpa) - The Serbian deputy premier in charge of the southern Serbia crisis, Nebojsa Covic, proposed ``certain positions'' for local Albanians in the government, the Belgrade daily Blic reported Wednesday.

At a meeting with Covic in Presevo Tuesday, Albanians, dominant in large parts of volatile southern Serbia, complained that they are ``discriminated and cut off from all state organs'', the newspaper said.

Presevo mayor Riza Halimi also demanded full demilitarization of the area, where a Yugoslav Army soldier died in Albanian guerrilla attacks over the weekend and several other people were injured on both sides.

Halimi acknowledged that ``many people in Presevo are under arms'', but said the situation was imposed by Slobodan Milosevic's toppled regime.

Commenting on Halimi's proposal to include armed extemists in talks to find a political colution, Covic, who also heads the state committee in charge of the crisis, said that ``it remains to bee seen what structures'' would join upcoming negotiations.

He also criticized the Yugoslav army for using artillery in clashes with guerrillas from the Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac Liberation Army (UCPMB).

``It is no fight against terrorism when you fire heavy weapons into a house'', he said. ``That will not happen again.''

According to the Belgrade Radio B-92, Covic said the crisis should be resolved in three phases.

In the first, all sides and the international community must become convinced that a peaceful solution is possible ``without changes of borders and special status for the area''.

He described the second phase as ``step-by-step'' demilitarization, while economic and political reconsruction would happen in the third.

Violence in southern Serbia erupted again last week following nearly two months of relative peace under a truce brokered by the international peacekeeping mission in Kosovo.

The killed soldier was the first casualty since late November, when four police died in a UCPMB offensive.

Belgrade (dpa) - New clashes broke out in the divided city of Kosovska Mitrovica Wednesday as hundreds of Albanian demonstrators attacked peacekeepers guarding the bridge leading into the Serb section, Beta news agency reported.

It said demonstrators tossed at least three Molotov cocktails at French soldiers when they moved to disperse the protest. KFOR responded with teargas and flash bombs, Beta said, adding that it was so far unclear if there were any injuries.

The NATO-led peacekeeping mission imposed a curfew in southern Albanian part of Mitrovica Tuesday night following violent clashes at the bridge that left more than 40 people injured.

Lieutenant General Carlo Cabigiosu, the commander of the KFOR peacekeeping force, and Hans Haekkerup, the United Nations administrator in Kosovo, called on Albanian and Serbian leaders to take all possible steps to calm the situation.

``It is time here that everybody here accepts his share of responsibility ... Political leaders of both parties have to take responsibility for progress, not to make the situation more difficult,'' Cabigiosu said.

Haekkerup said that the violence had to stop. ``The problems in Mitrovica are not easily solved. The first precondition is that the situation in South Mitrovica is stable,'' he added.

Cabigiosu and Haekeerup told journalists that they have seen some ``engagement'' and ``broad understanding'' from Kosovar leaders in calming down the situation and stopping the violence in Mitrovica.

Belgrade (dpa) - Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic said Wednesday that he would meet U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington on Friday, Radio B-92 reported.

It quoted Djindjic as saying that the crisis in southern Serbia and Belgrade's cooperation with the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague would be on the agenda of the meeting.

Stockholm (dpa) - Yugoslavian President Voyislav Kostunica met with Swedish Prime Goeran Persson in Stockholm on Wednesday for talks on the Balkan situtation, the foreign ministry said.

Persson, in his capacity as head of the revolving E.U. Presidency, was expected to apply pressure on Kostunica to have the deposed Yugoslavian president, Slobodan Milosevic, extradited to face charges before the European war crimes tribunal in The Hague, news reports said.

The question of Kosovo's future status was also expected to be discussed.

Kostunica so far has resisted western pressures to extradite Milosevic, and intends to bring Kosovo back under Serbian control.

Prior to his meeting with Persson and Foreign Affairs Minister Anna Lindh, Kostunica had an audience with King Carl XVI Gustaf.

MOSCOW, January 31 (Itar-Tass) - Russia is interested in success of the U.N. mission in Kosovo, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ordzhonikidze said on Wednesday.

Speaking in the press centre of the Russian Foreign Ministry at a conference on international law, he emphasised that "there is a unique chance now to achieve stability in the Balkans, and Russia is doing its utmost to promote this".

Ordzhonikidze stressed that "Russia intends to continue active participation in U.N. peacekeeping operations" and noted that Russian peacekeepers participate now in 10 out of 15 peacekeeping operations as part of the military, police and civil contingents of the mission.

The diplomat noted that the United Nations, including Russia as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, faces the task of raising quality and efficiency of the mission's operations.

The high-ranking Russian diplomat pointed to the success of cooperation between the U.N. and the Commonwealth of Independent States in the peacekeeping operation in Tajikistan. According to Ordzhonikidze, "the military phase of the operation there gradually turns into a restoration stage".

The deputy minister pointed to the importance of the U.N. social and economic role. He instanced as an example the situation in the North Caucasus where "aid is mostly received from the United Nations and other international organisations".

"This cooperation is irreplaceable for us," the deputy minister stated.

BELGRADE, January 31 (Itar-Tass) - Yugoslavia's interior ministry on Wednesday dismissed a claim by one of Moscow's newspapers that former president Slobodan Milosevic was placed under the house arrest.

The newspaper alleged that Yugoslav Interior Minister Zoran Jivkovic made a statement to this effect.

His aide Goran Vesic said in a comment: "The federal interior ministry is not involved in ensuring security of Milosevic at all. This function is not in the reference of the interior ministry, and nobody assigned us to it."

High-ranking government officials of Yugoslavia and Serbia had repeatedly called for a probe into the damage with which Milosevic's policy left the economy and people.

Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Dusan Mihailovic, who will be acting interior minister for two months, earlier said round-the-clock observation of Milosevic would be proper to prevent him from escaping a trial.

However, no politicians publicly called for the house arrest of Milosevic, as this would be inappropriate for a law-ruled state.

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Yugoslavia, Jan 31 (Reuters) - French peacekeepers fired tear gas on Wednesday at Kosovo Albanian protesters throwing stones and Molotov cocktails in the flashpoint town of Mitrovica, a Reuters reporter said.

Up to 1,000 demonstrators had gathered to protest at clashes between Serbs and Albanians in the volatile town on Monday in which one ethnic Albanian died and two more were wounded.

International officials had said a second man had died from his injuries but said on Wednesday that the information was wrong.

A demonstration on Tuesday against Monday's fighting also turned violent as protesters set fire to armoured vehicles.

Speaking before the latest clashes, the commander of the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force said he would send reinforcements to the northern town, where violence has flared up repeatedly over the past two years.

Lieutenant-General Carlo Cabigiosu said in the provincial capital Pristina that Italian and German troops would be sent with the possibility of further reinforcements from Britain and Scandinavian countries. He did not give specific numbers.

The number of British soldiers being discussed is 120, said a spokesman for British forces in Kosovo.

Cabigiosu said Serb representatives has also been asked to publicly declare their regrets about Monday's grenade attack which killed a 15-year-old youth.

``It's time for everybody here to take their responsibility,'' he told reporters. ``I have got an engagement by political leaders that they will do their best to calm down the situation and go for a peaceful solution.''

Protesters in Mitrovica began gathering late on Wednesday morning at the southern side of the main bridge over the River Ibar, which divides the Serb-dominated north and the Albanian-dominated south of Mitrovica.

The peacekeepers, equipped with riot gear including shields, helmets and gas masks, fired off more than 10 canisters of tear gas after members of the crowd began throwing stones at them. Similar clashes also occurred on Tuesday.

The crowd scattered but re-formed as the tear gas subsided and protesters threw a couple of Molotov cocktails. The peacekeepers responded again with tear gas and booming fireworks intended to disperse the protesters.

Mitrovica, Kosovo; 31 January 2001 (RFE/RL) -- NATO-led KFOR peacekeepers clashed with crowds of Kosovo Albanians yesterday in the divided Kosovo town of Mitrovica.

Reports say about 2,000 protesters gathered to demonstrate at the death of a 15-year-old Albanian boy on Monday, which they blame on Serbs in the town, and which sparked further clashes, leaving a total of two dead and several wounded. It also prompted KFOR to impose an overnight curfew in the tense divided town.

The ethnic Albanian crowd tried to storm a bridge leading to the Serb-dominated northern part of the town when KFOR troops fired tear gas and stun grenades to hold back the crowd. A few hundred Serbs gathered on the other side of the bridge, jeering at the ethnic Albanians. The ethnic Albanian crowd later surrounded the headquarters of the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), forcing the workers inside to stay the night.

Reports say more than 40 people were injured in the clashes. In addition, the Beta news agency says five KFOR and UN police vehicles were set on fire.

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Yugoslavia, Jan. 30 . Ethnic Albanians enraged by the killing of a teen-ager clashed Tuesday with NATO peacekeepers and police, who fired stun grenades and tear gas to keep them from storming a bridge leading to their town. s Serb community. The escalating clashes in the town, as well as strikes by Kosovo Albanians against Serb forces in the buffer zone between the two sides in the Presevo Valley, has raised concerns among Western allies about the threat of a full-scale war.

THE LATEST VIOLENCE flared a day after the death of the 15-year old ethnic Albanian, killed when attackers tossed hand grenades at a home and set it on fire. Two other Kosovo Albanians were injured in the attack, which set off a riot.

"Regrettably, crowds of people in the south, apparently frustrated by the killing of an Albanian yesterday, continued to ignore ... appeals for calm," said U.N. spokesman Michael Keats.

He said a dozen peacekeepers were injured, but it was not immediately clear how seriously. Two vehicles belonging to NATO-led troops enforcing the 1999 peace terms for the province were set on fire by the "angry mob," he said.

As friends and relatives of the slain youth gathered on the outskirts of Kosovska Mitrovica for his funeral, hundreds of ethnic Albanians assembled on the southern side of the main bridge separating the city into Serb and Albanian halves.

NATO peacekeepers and French gendarmes attached to the peacekeepers cordoned off the bridge and fired tear gas and stun grenades to keep the crowd from rushing it.

Fifty-three U.N. personnel remained in headquarters, located on the southern side of Kosovska Mitrovica, where they were surrounded by ethnic Albanian demonstrators, U.N. officials said in New York.

FRENCH TARGETED

"We. ve just received word that the personnel have been told not to leave the building and they may have to stay overnight if the situation doesn. t improve," U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said.

Demonstrators appeared to be targeting French peacekeepers rather than U.N. officials. Cars were set on fire just outside the French army base located on the ethnic Albanian side of Kosovska Mitrovica.

Soldiers supported by armored personnel carriers were inside the perimeter of the base, occasionally firing tear gas and stun grenades at the stone-throwing crowd.

Ethnic Albanians have often vented their frustration at the French peacekeepers, because they are seen as being pro-Serb.

The new violence comes a year after large-scale riots in the town. A dozen people were killed and many others injured in clashes that began with grenade attacks on two Serb cafes and riots in which crowds of Serbs and ethnic Albanians faced each other over the bridge, separated by NATO forces.

Earlier Tuesday, Kosovo. s top U.N. administrator had condemned Monday. s violence.

Hans Haekkerup, the U.N. administrator for the province, said Kosovska Mitrovica. s people must take responsibility for halting the riots that have flared repeatedly in the town 25 miles from the capital, Pristina.

"We will make every effort to provide security," Haekkerup said. But people must "join in that effort if we are ever to achieve a united and peaceful Mitrovica."

During Monday. s melee, rioters stopped a car belonging to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, pulled OSCE employees from the car and one Serb employee of the organization had his jaw broken.

U.N. officials said Monday. s attack appeared to be a provocation related to the first anniversary of clashes in Kosovska Mitrovica.

NATO-led peacekeepers also announced that a 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew will be imposed in the area where the attack occurred.

Separated by the Ibar River into hostile ethnic camps, Kosovska Mitrovica remains the province. s most tense town more than 1½ years after large-scale fighting between the two groups was ended with the pullout of Serb forces in exchange for an end to NATO bombing.

PRESEVO VALLEY

The latest clashes came as NATO Secretary-General George Robertson urged Yugoslavia to improve the rights of ethnic Albanians in the tense Presevo Valley zone on Kosovo. s eastern border.

A week-long upsurge of separatist attacks in the area, coupled with the clashes in Mitrovica, has raised the specter of spreading violence as Kosovo. s political future remains unsettled.

Robertson was speaking to reporters in Brussels with former U.N. Kosovo administrator Bernard Kouchner, who said he had told leading powers they must "be precise with the future of Kosovo otherwise you will get other attacks and murders and other unacceptable reactions."

Kouchner urged that voter registration begin now for a Kosovo general election that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) says will take six months to organize.

Kouchner declined to predict what might happen if the Kosovo Albanians. demand for complete independence is blocked indefinitely by the West, pointing out that U.N. resolution 1244 on Kosovo promises them "substantial autonomy."

The resolution also affirms Yugoslav sovereignty over Kosovo, which ethnic Albanians reject. Its calculated ambivalence is seen by some analysts as a symptom of major power indecision, which could develop into paralysis.

U.S. CONCERNED

NBC. s Jim Miklaszewski reported that U.S. military officials are concerned that a recent escalation in violence in the demilitarized zone surrounding Kosovo could explode into a full-blown shooting war.

According to the officials, various rogue factions of the Kosovo Albanians have been using the "ground safety zone" as cover to launch small strikes and sniper attacks against Serb forces in Yugoslavia.

Belgrade has complained to NATO . warning that if KFOR peacekeepers, including American troops cannot put a stop to the violence, the Yugoslav government will order its own military into the safety zone to respond to the attacks.

The problem for NATO and the U.S., Miklaszewski reported, is that the 5-kilometer-wide zone is actually in Yugoslav territory which the peacekeepers don. t have any authority to enter.

"For once, the Serbs are on the side of the angels. They are being attacked almost daily from within the safety zone and KFOR can only stand and watch," one U.S. official said. "We do everything we can to keep weapons out of that zone, but obviously we. re not successful."

At this time there appears to be no danger that American troops could be drawn into the fighting, but the Pentagon is concerned the increasing violence and instability could quickly spread, "and we. d find ourselves right in the middle of a shooting war."

NBC. s Jim Miklaszewski, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

30 January . Members of the Security Council today strongly condemned the attacks by ethnic Albanian extremist groups in southern Serbia and stressed the need to bring the perpetrators to justice.

In a statement to the press made by the Council President, Ambassador Kishore Mahbubani of Singapore, Council members called again "for the immediate and complete cessation of violence, for the dissolution of ethnic Albanian extremist groups and for the immediate withdrawal from the area" of all non-residents engaged in extremist activities.

The statement followed closed consultations by the Council on a letter from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Goran Svilanovic, about the continuing tension in and around the Ground Safety Zone. Council members were also briefed by UN Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping, Hédi Annabi.

Meanwhile, the top United Nations official in Kosovo has condemned the violence that took place yesterday in Mitrovica, which claimed the life of one Kosovo Albanian, left a Kosovo Serb gravely injured and targeted the staff of international organizations.

"The people of Mitrovica must themselves stop the cycle of violence," said Hans Haekkerup, head of the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), adding that every effort would be made to provide security and opportunities for all Mitrovica communities.

"But the people and their leaders must join in that effort if we are ever to achieve a united and peaceful Mitrovica," he said.

According to a UN spokesman, the fighting started yesterday afternoon in Mitrovica's "Little Bosnia" neighborhood, when a clash between Serbs and Albanians escalated into a grenade attack in which one Kosovo Albanian was killed and five others injured. Following that incident, both communities set up roadblocks in parts of the city.

Kosovo's Interim Administrative Council also condemned the violence, calling on the people of Mitrovica to stop all acts of provocation and revenge.