LEADER OF KOSOVO ALBANIANS ON NEGOTIATIONS WITH SERBIAN AUTHORITIES








BELGRADE, March 7, 2001. /from RIA Novosti correspondent Sergei Ryabikin/--A leader of Kosovo Albanians has declared that negotiations with Serbian authorities are possible only on the subject of "peaceful establishment of independence in Kosovo." Chairman of the Kosovo Democratic Party and former leader of the Liberation Army of Kosovo Hashim Thaqi said in an interview with the Yugoslav TV channel Politika that Kosovo would never again become part of Serbia and Yugoslavia.


	Hopefully, an international conference will be held on the future status of Kosovo where a question of "a peaceful exit of Kosovo from Serbia" will be raised, he said.


	Thaqi added that the liberation of all Kosovo Albanians now imprisoned in Serbia /he said there were some 600 of them/ would be a preliminary condition for the start of negotiations with Belgrade authorities.  


	Hashim Thaqi ascertained that Belgrade had issued a proposal to exchange territories -- the northern part of the town of Kosovska Mitrovica /on Kosovo territory where Serbs live/ for Presevo /in southern Serbia with Albanians constituting 90 per cent of its population/.


	Commenting on the security zone in southern Serbia, Hashim Thaqi said that "the region has no future as long as there is Serbian police there." He also believes that it is necessary to withdraw subdivisions of the Yugoslav Army from this security zone as well. Thaqi thinks that the district in southern Serbia which includes the communities of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja /where Albanians predominate/ should be given the status of autonomy but it should not be annexed to Kosovo.


	In conclusion of the interview, the Politika anchor man noted that Hashim Thaqi had skipped two earlier questions -- on the return of Serbs ousted from Kosovo and on the destiny of people missing or kidnapped on the territory.