27 October 2003

Kosovo News

· Annan urges Belgrade-Pristina dialogue (B92)
· Belgrade asks UN to investigate Ceku (SRNA)
· Kosovo Albanians attack French troops (Tanjug)
· Batic's open letter to Holkeri (Tanjug)
· Thaçi certain he will not be accsued before war crimes tribunal (Tanjug)
· UNMIK received extensive documentation about crimes of KLA leaders, Batic (Tanjug)
· Kosovo's Privatisation Hiccups (IWPR)

Regional News
· Serbia Acts on Mladic Demand (IWPR)
· Serbian police uncover arms cache belonging to "Albanian terrorists" (AFP)
· Privatisations bonus for Serbia (FT)
· Macedonian capital celebrates beatification of Mother Teresa (AP)
· Macedonia to begin month long gun amnesty (DPA)

International
· Up to 18 killed in choreographed attacks (The Guardian)

B92

Annan urges Belgrade-Pristina dialogue

WASHINGTON -- Saturday – United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today called on the Serbian government and Kosovo’s interim institutions to collaborate in establishing appropriate conditions for the province’s residents.

Annan saluted the beginning of dialogue in Vienna last week, emphasising that the development of effective institutions in Kosovo should be linked to improved relations with Belgrade.

The secretary-general made his appeal for better cooperation in his report to the Security Council on the past three months activities of the UN mission in Kosovo.

SRNA

Belgrade asks UN to investigate Ceku
BELGRADE -- Friday – Belgrade’s Coordination Centre for Kosovo has asked the province’s United Nations mission to launch an urgent investigation against Kosovo Protection Corps commander Agim Ceku after mission chief Harri Holkeri secured his release yesterday from police custody in Slovenia.

The Centre said it was acting on Holkeri’s claim that crimes committed in Kosovo fall solely within the jurisdiction of the UN mission’s judicial bodies.

Ceku, a former rebel leader, was arrested in Slovenia on Wednesday on a warrant issued in Belgrade. He was later released after Holkeri intervened.

A statement from the Coordination Centre, which is led by Deputy Serbian Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic, asked the Serbian Justice Ministry to send all material on Ceku to Holkeri.

Kosovo Albanians attack French troops (Tanjug)
A group of Kosovo Albanians attacked on Saturday a group of French troops within KFOR at Prekaz in central Kosovo, and forced them to leave the region, UN police stated on Sunday.
One French soldier was hurt, but noone was arrested, UNMIK police said in the statement, carried by the German DPA news agency.

Batic's open letter to Holkeri (Tanjug)

Serbian Justice Minister Vladan Batic sent on Sunday an open letter to UNMIK chief Harri Holkeri, in which he denied claims that Serbian state bodies never sent evidence about crimes that were committed in Kosovo-Metohija by the current commander of the Kosovo Protection Corps Agim Cheku and by other members of the former KLA.
"In the capacity of justice minister in the Serbian Government, I am very surprised by the content of the letter that, following the arrest of Agim Cheku, you sent to the Slovenian authorities, claiming that for you, as special UN adviser, the decision of Serbian judicial bodies did nto present a legally relevant document, because the territory of Kosovo-Meothija has its own legal system that is completely separated from the Serbian legal system," Batic said in the letter to Holkeri.

Thaçi certain he will not be accsued before war crimes tribunal (Tanjug)

President of the Democratic Party of Kosovo Hashim Tachi has stated he was certain that he would never be indicted by the war crimes tribunal.
"I know that people in the Serbian Justice Ministry and Vladan Batic himself will be disappointed, but The Hague is not working according to the wishes of Belgrade," Tachi told, Jagodina television Palma Plus, in an interveiw broadcast late Saturday evening.

UNMIK received extensive documentation about crimes of KLA leaders, Batic (Tanjug)

Serbian Justice Minister Vladan Batic has confirmed that UNMIK's sector for the judiciary and the cabinet of the UN civilian mission chief in Kosovo and Metohija possess an extensive documentation about war crimes that were committed by Kosovo Protection Corps commander Agim Cheku, president of the Democratic Party of Kosovo Hashim Tachi and the leader of the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo Ramush Haradinai and other KLA leaders.
"I have, as Serbian justice minister, written twice to the director of UNMIK's sector for the judiciary, who at that time was Williamson, and as many as three times to the Civilian Mission chief and informed them about the evidence we have about the crimes of Tachi and Cheku. The public has been informed about all that," Batic said in a statement to "Glas" released on Sunday and announced an open letter to UNMIK chief Harri Holkeri in that respect.

Kosovo's Privatisation Hiccups (IWPR)
The privatisation process in Kosovo is running into difficulties as staff at the agency managing it grow concerned at the legal implications of what they are doing.
The jittery mood was highlighted when the Kosovo Trust Agency, KTA, cancelled the latest round of sell-offs, only to reinstate it later.
The KTA - a European Union-run agency - has been trying without success to get full legal immunity for staff who sign contracts that one day might lead to legal action.
On October 7 the KTA suspended the third round of privatisation because of concerns over its legal vulnerability. The tender for 22 firms was announced in September and bids were due to be opened on November 11 but the EU head in Kosovo, Nikolaus Graf Lambsdorff called the date off.
His decision came after a United States businessman filed a lawsuit in New York against the KTA, over a timber plant at Pec (Peja), at the beginning of October.
Kosovo prime minister Bajram Rexhepi immediately wrote to Lambsdorff asking for an urgent resumption of the process. "The decision... will have a catastrophic effect on the investors," he said. "By admitting that there are flaws so serious that the entire process must be completely halted, you will throw into doubt any possibility that the KTA and EU can actually manage the privatisation process."
The tender was put back on track late on October 22 after a KTA board meeting.
The temporary suspension does not seem to have been a direct consequence of the US lawsuit. What is clear, though, is that it was prompted by growing concerns within the agency about its vulnerability to litigation. The issue has left EU managers at odds with the United Nations, which administers Kosovo.
Across Eastern Europe, privatisation has been a difficult and often contentious exercise. In Kosovo, however, the problems have greatly complicated by the fact that no one knows what the province's ultimate status will be - a sovereign state or part of Serbia. This has meant that the EU has entered sensitive and uncharted territory as it pursues privatisation.
Although privatisation started in May this year, legal aspects of the process have been debated for two years.
In 2001, the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, UNMIK, contracted the European Union to oversee the process, and established the KTA in June 2002 under EU management.
In the first two rounds, the KTA disposed of 20 firms, all but one to Kosovo Albanian buyers. The purchase price was duly paid, and a total of around 24 million euro deposited in Kosovo's central bank pending any claims made by creditors.
But none of the sales has been finalised, because the agency's managing board has not ratified the contracts.
This leaves investors unable either to take control of the companies they have bought, or to claim their money back. "We paid more than a million euro, yet we can't do anything until the contract is ratified," one buyer, who asked to remain anonymous, told IWPR. "Every day of waiting is a pure loss - frozen money yields no profits."
Kosovo has around 500 state firms, known as "socially owned enterprises", which it inherited from Tito's Yugoslavia. UNMIK's privatisation list contains 415 companies, currently employing some 30,000 people.
Belgrade has raised numerous concerns about privatisation in Kosovo, the simplest of which is that - as a successor state to Yugoslavia - it claims ownership of many of the companies now up for sale.
Far more immediate, however, is the question of debt owed to Serbian and international creditors. Selling off these companies complete with outstanding debts raises the prospect of future claims.
The government in Belgrade says many Kosovo firms still owe money to Serbian companies, and has pressed for these debts to be repaid before they are sold off. The KTA has said previously that the new private firms will inherit any outstanding debt, and provision was made for eventual payment. But the Serbs question why they should wait for the process to end before this happens.
As well as the issue of claims within the former Yugoslavia, Serbia is irked by the fact that it is currently servicing a 1.5 billion US dollar debt which Kosovo firms owe to international creditors. While it is obliged to do so as guarantor of the debts, it argues that it is carrying the burden for firms which it neither controls nor benefits from.
Nenad Vasic, an analyst specialising in Kosovo economy told IWPR, "The basis of Serbia's complaint is that it is paying the debts of Kosovo enterprises without receiving any profit from them; it is unable to settle outstanding debt claims; and the status of local manufacturing branches of Serbian companies also remains unresolved."
Vasic thinks Serbian banks and companies can and should sue the KTA both in Belgrade and international commercial courts.
It is unclear how strongly these various claims would weigh in international arbitration. But the debt issues in particular provide a number of points on which the new companies might find themselves in court one day.
If this happened, KTA officials who sign off on privatisation deals could end up in court as well. Aware of this, KTA staff have grown increasingly uncomfortable with their role in recent months. Sources close to the EU and KTA have complained to IWPR that the UN has left them holding a in a difficult position.
"They gave us the dirty work to do, fully aware of how problematic and difficult it might prove," said the source.
To reduce the risks, UNMIK ruled in June last year that the KTA should enjoy legal immunity within the protectorate. It set up a special chamber of the Kosovo supreme court to handle any claims made against the agency - though it will not admit lawsuits. EU spokeswoman Monique de Groot told IWPR that "so far it was thought that regulation on the KTA provides enough security to its members."
But these measures have proved insufficient to reassure international officials in the KTA, who fear that they personally could be sued anywhere outside Kosovo. This is believed to have led to their refusal to ratify earlier privatisation contracts.
As a solution, the EU has asked the UN to grant the KTA worldwide immunity from legal action arising out of its work.
EU chief Lambsdorff recently wrote to the UN legal office in New York asking for full immunity for KTA staff and board members. The response which the UN sent on October 9 - seen by IWPR - ruled this out.
The result is a stand-off between the UN and the EU. It is not certain what compromise they will agree on, and when it will happen. EU spokeswoman De Groot would tell IWPR only that "further UN clarification" was being sought.
IWPR has learned that KTA director Juergen Mendricki who resigned at the end of September left his post because of the immunity issue. Although the official explanation was that Mendricki left for personal reasons, KTA board member Bedri Shabani said "Mendricki told the board members that he had to leave since UN had not met his legal requests".
When IWPR spoke to Mendricki, he refused to comment on his time at the KTA.
A KTA source who asked to remain anonymous told IWPR that a split has emerged in the agency between EU consultants reluctant to proceed until legal matters are sorted out, and the US-based consultancy Barring Point which wants to press ahead.
IWPR raised this with a Barring Point consultant who asked not to be named, but said no such schism had arisen.
Details of the terms on which the KTA reinstated the privatisation tender are unclear, but the signs are that pressure from advocates of privatisation forced the agency to backtrack without winning any concession on immunity.
Serbia Acts on Mladic Demand (IWPR)
The Serbian authorities have launched a fresh search for the fugitive war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic - two days after being served with four potentially explosive new indictments by the Hague tribunal.
Growing international pressure to cooperate with the war crimes court and capture Mladic - the former Bosnian Serb army chief charged with genocide for his alleged part in the Srebrenica massacre - has prompted the government to take some action.
On October 22, police arrived at Blagoja Parovica Street in the Belgrade suburb of Golf, where Mladic once lived, and also visited the nearby town of Mostanica, which is home to his sister. Patrols were also carried out along the Drina river, which borders Bosnia. Mladic was nowhere to be found.
The fruitless search came after the tribunal and the international community sent its strongest message yet that the Serbian government is running out of time over the Mladic issue.
On October 20, The Hague unsealed four new indictments against Serbian generals - two of them serving officers - for alleged atrocities committed during the war in Kosovo.
They are the current head of the Serbian interior ministry's public security department, Sreten Lukic; his predecessor Vlastimir Djordjevic; former army chief of staff Nebojsa Pavkovic and Vladimir Lazarevic, ex-commander of the army's Pristina Corps.
Serbian prime minister Zoran Zivkovic has ruled out any immediate arrest or extradition of the four, saying it is not a priority for the government.
After the indictments were served, the United States' ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues, Pierre Richard Prosper, hinted that Mladic's immediate extradition could result in the four new indictees being tried before a Serbian court - which is exactly what Belgrade wants.
However, The Hague immediately rejected the possibility of such a trade.
The apparent contradiction has led to a guessing game in the Serbian media, with many commentators speculating that Prosper's apparent offer could carry more political weight than the stance presented by the Tribunal - and may persuade the government to do something about the Mladic problem swiftly in order to keep Lukic in Belgrade.
"We are now facing an absurd situation. If Lukic wants to be tried at home, he has to arrest Mladic immediately," said one commentator, who did not want to be named.
The indictments have come at a critical time for the ruling Democratic Opposition of Serbia, DOS, coalition, which has been buffeted by a series of crises in recent months and is currently facing a vote of no confidence in parliament.
Political analyst Bratislav Grubacic told IWPR that the indictments were damaging for the already shaky government. "The timing is difficult for the government, which will not probably survive for long now," he said.
"Mladic is at the heart of all Serbia's problems. If the regime had the courage to deliver him, some agreement over these new indictments could have been reached. As it is, I expect more names to be added if they don't arrest him quickly."
Grubacic believes that even if the current government does not extradite the general, the next one will have to, adding, "The international community agrees that [former Bosnian Serb president Radovan] Karadzic and Mladic are as high a priority for Serbia as [indicted general] Ante Gotovina is for Croatia. There is no way out."
One of the four indictments is especially embarrassing for the authorities. Lukic is not only the head of public security in the interior minister but also serves as deputy minister - and it was his job to arrest and extradite Mladic to The Hague.
Interior minister Dusan Mihajlovic has described Lukic as his "right-hand man" in carrying out police reforms, and as the "hero" of Operation Sabre, the anti-organised crime round-up launched in the wake of the assassination of prime minister Zoran Djindjic.
Both the opposition and the interior ministry have come out strongly in support of Lukic. Dragan Markovic of the Party of Serbian Unity has called on the ministry to "stage a coup d'etat and save Serbia".
Police plan to hold a protest on Friday, October 24 in support of Lukic, saying, "indicting people who performed their duty during the war according to the law and service regulations is unacceptable".
But analysts agree that the international community is now sick of the cat-and-mouse game played out over Mladic's whereabouts for the past three years.
Tribunal chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte has been fighting a long-running battle with the Serbian authorities over the arrest of fugitive war crimes suspects. She has strong European Union and United States backing, but her insistence that the government knows where the suspects are hiding has always been strongly denied by Belgrade.
Prime minister Zivkovic and several members of his cabinet have asked Del Ponte to supply them "with information on General Mladic's exact location, if she knows that he is in Serbia".
The bad feeling between Belgrade and The Hague was exacerbated earlier this month during Del Ponte's most recent visit, when Zivkovic refused to accept four sealed indictments from her.
That refusal appears to have convinced Del Ponte that further pressure was required, and on October 10, she gave the UN Security Council a negative assessment of Serbia-Montenegro's cooperation with the tribunal so far.
At the same time, pressure is coming from other centres of power. The US Senate is considering a bill that will place one condition on any further financial assistance to the country - the arrest and extradition of Ratko Mladic. And the deadline will be probably the March 31.
The capture of Mladic is also a prerequisite for Serbia-Montenegro's integration into NATO's Partnership for Peace programme. NATO Secretary-General George Robertson has said that he would personally encourage their admission by the end of year - as long as Mladic is delivered to the tribunal.
Military analysts and IWPR sources in the army and the police agree that, following international pressure, the authorities have prepared the ground for Mladic's arrest. According to an IWPR source close to the army, Mladic's position has radically changed over the past six months.
Army reforms have weeded out officers close to Mladic, and cut off his ties with the counter-intelligence service, KOS, on which he previously relied. His security is believed to be down to a handful of men, and it is thought that funding for his fugitive lifestyle has all but dried up.
One of the most significant events took place in April 2003, when Defence Minister Boris Tadic disbanded the Serbia-Montenegro Army's Commission for Cooperation with the Hague Tribunal, which was believed to have supplied Mladic with information.
Military analyst Aleksandar Radic told IWPR, "The reforms have created the conditions for Mladic's extradition, as he no longer has access to important information about what was going on in the state leadership."
But, despite these technical preparations, the 16 parties in the ruling Democratic Opposition of Serbia, DOS, coalition have proved incapable of taking the political decision to extradite him.
Many observers of the current fractured political scene wonder whether a new government would be able to succeed where DOS has failed.
But Ljubisa Sekulic, a member of the Forum for International Relations, thinks no government would be able to resist an American ultimatum, "Mladic has to be extradited - either by this government, or by a new one, which will face even greater pressure to prove that it is dedicated to reform."

AFP

Serbian police uncover arms cache belonging to "Albanian terrorists"

BELGRADE, Oct 26 (AFP) - Serbian police said Sunday they had discovered an arms cache in south Serbia belonging to "Albanian terrorist groups" operating in the region.
Police said the haul included around 30 automatic weapons, grenade launchers, hand grenades and ammunition.
The discovery came as part of a crackdown on the activities of "Albanian terrorist groups" in southern Serbia, the police said.
The weaponry was found close to the village of Veliki Trnovac, near the town of Bujanovac, where it had been hidden since demilitarisation in 2001 by the Albanian extremist group, the "liberation army of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac," police said.
Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac, adjoining Kosovo, lie in a region with a large Albanian population and were the scene of clashes from 2000 to 2001 between Serb forces and the self-proclaimed liberation army, which later disbanded to become the "Albanian national army," since dubbed a terrorist organisation by the United Nations.

Financial Times

Privatisations bonus for Serbia
By ERIC JANSSON
October 27, 2003
Serbia's government has completed a string of big privatisation deals, bringing in more money than expected.
Aleksandar Vlahovic, minister in charge of privatisation, told the Financial Times receipts from state sell-offs this year would reach Euros 1.3bn, beating the government's official forecast of Euros 1bn (Pounds 690m).
The government has clung precariously to power in recent months, relying on a thin majority in Serbia's unruly parliament. But Mr Vlahovic's ministry has roared ahead with ambitious privatisation plans he now calls "irreversible".
The typically cash-strapped government has reeled in the largest privatisation deals seen in the former Yugoslavia since the fall of Slobodan Milosevic's regime in October 2000.
Most of the revenue comes from three deals. Serbia made Euros 605m two months ago by selling controlling stakes in its two largest cigarette- rolling plants to Philip Morris International and British-American Tobacco.
Another big hit came in September when Lukoil, the Russian oil giant, bid Euros 207m to buy Beopetrol, the country's second-largest retailer of oil products.
Mr Vlahovic said he expected an additional Euros 400m from a flurry of smaller sales later this year.
The revenue growth illustrates revived interest among multinationals in the former Yugoslavia's largest market.
Since Mr Milosevic left office, leaders in Belgrade have struggled to improve Serbia's image and economy, wrecked during a decade of war.
Markets swiftly stabilised under their stewardship, but until now there has been little foreign investment.
But Serbia's privatisation team faces the tough task next year of selling off a slew of loss-making companies.

AP

Macedonian capital celebrates beatification of Mother Teresa

By KONSTANTIN TESTORIDES
Associated Press Writer
SKOPJE, Macedonia, Oct 26 (AP) - The city where late Mother Teresa was
born on Sunday celebrated her recent beatification by Pope John Paul II, putting aside dispute between two country's ethnic communities that both claim the Nobel Prize laureate as their own.
``When Pope John Paul II beatified Mother Theresa, that meant that ... the soul of Mother Teresa has moved to heaven and that is in eternal life with Jesus Christ, the Holy Mother, angels and other saints,'' Bishop Joakim Herbut said at the Mass in the capital's main Catholic church, Sveto Srce Isusovo _ The Holy Heart of Jesus.
After the Mass, a procession of about 300 people walked through downtown Skopje, braving cold rain, to lay flowers at a square where Mother Teresa's original home once stood.
Born here in 1910 to an ethnic Albanian family as Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu, Mother Teresa left for Ireland at the age of 18 and later to India, where she spent her life as a Roman Catholic nun caring for the poor. She won the Nobel prize for peace in 1979.
By praising her as the ``greatest daughter of Macedonia,'' leaders of the country's majority Macedonians have angered ethnic Albanians _ nearly a third of the country's population of 2 million _ who insist that her ethnic origin be remembered.
Macedonia nearly broke apart in 2001 because of an ethnic Albanian insurgency. A Western-brokered peace defused the conflict, meeting the rebel demands for greater rights for their community in exchange for peace.
``It is time to forget the past and to give a chance to the present and to the future. It is time to stop wasting energy on the endless debates to whom Mother Teresa belong,'' said Skopje Mayor Risto Penov. However, he added: ``The fact remains that she was born in Skopje,''
Sister Nirmala, Mother Teresa's successor as the new superior of the Missionaries of Charity order, arrived to attend the ceremony, saying she felt ``gratitude, deep joy and emotion.''
``People of Macedonia should love each other, as God loves you,'' she said after standing and praying for several minutes at a Mother Teresa monument in the capital.
Asked to comment the dispute about Mother Teresa's background, Sister Nirmala simply said: ``She was born in this city. She was born to Albanian parents''.

DPA

Macedonia to begin month long gun amnesty

By Rade Maroevic, dpa
Skopje 26 Oct (dpa) - The high level of murders, shootings and threats which have plagued ethnically divided Macedonia in the past years should be significantly reduced, as the country begins an internationally sponsored weapons amnesty programme.
At least, that is what Skopje authorities and international representatives hope for ahead of November 1, when the programme kickstarts with the opening of collection points for illegal weapons in each of Macedonia's 121 municipalities.
``For a better tomorrow - no names will be taken, no penalties will be given,'' read billboards and posters all over the countryside -both in Macedonian and Albanian.
The goal is to collect some 25,000 weapons - just a tiny fragment of the estimated 150,000 illegal guns, rocket-launchers and mortars held by the local population during the years of ethnic struggle, which brought the small Balkan country to the edge of civil war two years ago.
``Some 200 people died in the 2001 conflict. Hundreds more were killed in shootings after the conflict. Maybe it is the right time for everyone to turn in their weapons,'' said Skopje resident Vlatko. ``But the bad habits are hard to break.''
The 45-day-long ``no questions asked'' amnesty sponsored by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) aims to break the ``gun culture'' - particularly prevalent in the Balkans.
``In the Balkans, there is a tradition of customary law which basically means - an eye for an eye. Most of Albanian groups, both here and in Kosovo, never achieved anything by legal means. So, one has to keep the gun,'' said Rexhep, a 33-year old Albanian from Skopje.
The UNDP has already spend more than 430,000 U.S. dollars on the campaign, including a lottery which will offer the chance to win cars and scooters to those who voluntarily turn in their ``Kalashnikovs''.
After the amnesty ends, persons found in possession of illegal guns will face harsh penalties.
The Orthodox Curch and Islamic Community, deeply divided during the time of struggle, ``blessed and fully supported'' the action, describing the amnesty as a ``holy duty''.
``We appeal to the Muslims in a tome before the Holy Month of Ramadan to turn in their weapons, because they are not needed in our society,'' the head of the Islamic Community Reis-ul-ulema Arif Efendi Emini appealed to the predominantly Muslim Albanian population, which makes up some 25 per cent of the country's 2 million population.
A similar appeal was issued on behalf of majority Slavic Macedonians, as their Macedonian Orthodox Church called upon all citizens of the country to ``lay down the weapons for a better future''.
``We are present amongst our believers and we know they are afraid for their lives every time they have to leave the home. As a Church we support love amongst all people and we unconditionally support the weapons amnesty programme,'' said Archbishop Kiril.
The same messages came from the country's top politicians, who organized the amnesty programme to defuse remaining tensions between Macedonians and Albanians.
``Albanians do not need to keep their weapons because of their neighbouring Macedonians, or vice versa, because we have the Ohrid peace deal which includes solutions for all open questions,'' said Ali Ahmeti, former Albanian rebel chief turned politician.
Ahmeti added that his National Liberation Army (UCK) had already laid their weapons down in 2001, during a month-long amnesty closely monitored by NATO mission ``Essential Harvest'', when more than 3,800 guns were destroyed.
Some of them were collectors items, sceptics in Skopje said at the time, as at least a dozen weapons handed in by the UCK fighters later ended up in local museums. ``This might be another chance for museums to get a hold of some rare guns,'' Vlatko said.
However, the Albanian National Army (AKSh) - the underground organization which emerged after the peace deal halted the insurgency in 2001, strongly opposed the weapons collection programme, and even the existence of Macedonia as a country, calling it an ``artificial creation''.
Western diplomats do not seem too worried about the AKSh, saying it was ``just a group of criminals which hide behind ideology to hide its dirty business''.
``The weapons amnesty is very important. We have to gain the support of all political organizations in order to continue the reconciliation between Macedonians and Albanians. The final result of the amnesty will, in some matter, be an evaluation of our results so far,'' a western diplomat told Deutsche Presse-Agentur, dpa.
But, he warned that similar action triggered in neighbouring Kosovo in September was nothing less than a failure, as organizers managed to collect only 155 weapons during a month-long amnesty.
In the Balkans, including Albania, Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia and Kosovo, only some 500,000, or 22 per cent of the estimated 2.3 million illegal weapons were collected during the almost decade long disarmament operation.

Up to 18 killed in choreographed attacks (The Guardian)

Up to 18 people were feared dead today after bombers targeted the Baghdad headquarters of the International Red Cross and two police stations in the city.
A suicide bomber drove an ambulance packed with explosives into security barriers outside offices of the aid agency at around 8.30am local time (0530 GMT), killing around 10 people, an American general said.
Elsewhere, three other bombs were reported to have exploded outside two police stations in the Iraqi capital, leaving another eight people dead.
The morning of choreographed attacks by Iraqi resistance guerrillas appears to have been choreographed to coincide with the first day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, US Brigadier General Mark Hertling said.
Of the Red Cross attack, Brig Gen Hertling said that he believed around 10 Iraqis had been killed and another 10 people injured. "It definitely was a suicide bombing," he said.
One Red Cross worker, who would not give his name, said: "The ambulance stopped in front of the line of barrels we have had in front to protect the building and then it exploded."
Despite the protection of the barrels, oil drums filled with sand, the blast blew down a 40-foot (12-metre) section of the front wall in front of the three-storey building. It also demolished a dozen cars parked nearby and appeared to break a water main, flooding the streets.
Speaking in Brussels ahead of an EU meeting, the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, reacted with "shock and outrage". He said: "The fact that terrorists have yet again targeted not US or UK troops but an international organisation ... shows the depth of depravity to which they stoop."
Mr Straw called the security situation in Baghdad "unsatisfactory" but said "overall the situation across Iraq is getting better." He said: "I will just make this clear: We will not be deterred by this kind of outrage."
Sir Nicholas Young, the chief executive of the British Red Cross, said: "[We are] a neutral, independent humanitarian organisation which serves to help those most in need wherever they are in the world, and that we have been deliberately targeted in this way is a great shock to us."
However he said that "despite today's attack we remain committed to helping the Iraqi people". The provision of safe drinking water, visiting detainees and reuniting separated families, are part of the agency's work, he said.
Inside, the Red Cross building was said to be heavily damaged and littered with shattered glass, broken doors, hinges and toppled book cases.
American troops and Iraqi police converged on the neighbourhood and cordoned off the area following that attack which left a crater five metres across. The crater filled had filled with water as firefighters put out the blaze in the vehicle.
Despite the carnage, Brig Gen Hertling praised Iraqi police for stopping the bomber getting closer to their target.
A vehicle exploded in front of the al-Khadra police station in northeast Baghdad in one of the other attacks, killing three or four people, according to Iraqi policeman Saad Abdullah. Mr Abdullah said about 50 people were injured and 10 cars were damaged and that the blast caused panic among children at a nearby school.
Brig Gen Hertling said he believed the attacks may have been timed to coincide with Ramadan to increase the sense of unease among the five million population of Baghdad.
During Ramadan Muslims abstain from food, drink, cigarettes and sex during daylight hours, and religious feelings can run high.
Dr Jalal F Massa, 53, a cardiologist whose daughter was slightly injured in the Red Cross blast, said the US occupation had failed to bring security to the city. "For us, as Iraqi people, who have suffered so much, we feel helpless when we see this," he said. "It [the occupation] has not been a success. We were much better off in the 1950s when we had little oil. I don't know what price we have to pay."
Today's bombings follow yesterday's audacious rocket salvo attack on the Rashid hotel in central Baghdad which narrowly missed Paul Wolfowitz, the US deputy defence secretary, who had been staying there.
The attack at 6am killed a US army colonel, and injured 18 others, including a British Treasury official. Mr Wolfowitz, one of the main architects of the war to remove Saddam Hussein, was visibly shaken by the attack, which struck yards from his room on the 12th floor. An Iraqi governing council spokesman told the Guardian it had been "a near miss".
Also today the US military said three American soldiers were killed and four wounded in two separate attacks yesterday, two dying in a roadside bomb in Baghdad and the other in an attck in Abu Ghraib, on the western edge of Baghdad. Since the US president, George Bush, announced the end of major combat in Iraq on May 1, 112 US soldiers and 11 British soldiers have been killed.