Kosovo Albanian mayor blames Milosevic for destabilisation

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Yugoslavia, Feb 25 (AFP) -

The ethnic Albanian leader in this divided town blunity finally do something concrete," he said.

"Following the provocation and destabilisation initiated by the Milosevic regime, the international community recognises the new dangerous situation," he said.

He welcomed recent proposals for up to 2,000 ethnic Albanians driven from homes in the north to start a gradual return under KFOR protection. But said he would not negotiate with Mitrovica's Serbian leader Oliver Ivanoic to push the issue forwards.

"For the time being I am not ready to talk with him. I talked with him enough for seven months and we had no kind of success," he said. He stressed that after the the "massacre" of February 3, when a grenade attack on a Serb cafe sparked a night of rioting that left at least six Albanians dead, he could not resume contact with Ivanovic, accusing him of organising armed groups in the unrest.

"I am ready to talk even with the devil to improve the situation, but after this massacre I cannot talk with him," he said. He said French troops had lost credibility by failing to control the violence and called for more "neutral" forces such as British and US troops to patrol the north, a move vehemently opposed by the Serbs. "Maybe they would prefer to see Serbian soldiers or Russian or

maybe Greek, but it is impossible in this moment, they must accept this

reality," he said. He blamed the clashes which marked the end of Monday's mass

demonstration on out-of-town "troublemakers" driven by unemployment and

frustration at the exodus of Albanians from the north. He said he had opposed the march, preferring to allow KFOR to "concentrate all their energy and attention on the security situation."