MACEDONIA CALLS FOR URGENT SESSION OF UN SECURITY COUNCIL








BELGRADE, March 5, 2001. /from RIA Novosti correspondent Sergei Ryabikin/--Macedonia has appealed for the UN Security Council to hold an urgent session necessitated by a sharp aggravation of the situation on this country's border with the Yugoslav territory of Kosovo.


	A letter sent by the Macedonian Foreign Minister Srdjan Kerim to the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan stresses the necessity to elaborate a plan and preventive measures to stop the violence. Macedonia believes that it is necessary to form a security zone with a special regime on its border with Kosovo, the document reads.


	The Macedonian Foreign Minister expressed his readiness to arrive in New York and take part in a session of the UN Security Council to discuss this issue.


	The Macedonian authorities have sent analogous addresses to NATO's Secretary General George Robertson, European Union envoy for foreign policy and security Javier Solana, Stability Pact coordinator for South-Eastern Europe Bodo Hombach and Greek Foreign Minister Yeoryios Papandreou.


	Reports spread in Skopje say that an agreement on "a joint combat operation on the part of the Macedonian army and KFOR" was reached at last Sunday's negotiations between President Boris Trajkovski of Macedonia and commander of the international peace-keeping forces in Kosovo (KFOR) Italian General Carlo Cabligiousu in the course of the latter's visit to the Macedonian capital. No details of this agreement have been disclosed yet.


	Macedonian Defence Minister Ljuben Paunovski has told the press that the country's leadership may take a decision on a military operation to liberate northern Macedonia which has been occupied by Albanian extremists for over two weeks.


	The "partial mobilisation" of reserve police regiments currently underway in Skopje and other Macedonian towns initiated by a decision which was taken several hours after the death of three Macedonian servicemen killed by Albanian militants also suggests such developments.