U.S. allows KLA some days before "demilitarization"
WASHINGTON, June 15 (Reuters) - The United States said on Tuesday NATO it would give the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) some days of grace before it starts ``demilitarizing'' the guerrillas.
Even then NATO will not necessarily disarm all member of the KLA, the rebel group which has been fighting Serbian forces for the independence of the province, a U.S. spokesman added.
In the meantime, NATO forces will disarm only those KLA members who provoke withdrawing Serbian forces and refuse to obey instructions to back off, said Army Brigadier-General John Craddock, commander of Task Force Falcon, the U.S. contingent.
NATO expects to reach an agreement with the KLA soon on how the guerrilla army will ``demilitarize'', Craddock added.
``The first task is to get the Serb troops out. Then we will begin working on the other goals of the military technical agreement. One of the goals that NATO has is to demilitarize the KLA,'' he told reporters in a conference call from Skopje.
As Serbs withdraw and NATO moves in, KLA guerrillas have come out into the open, appearing on the streets armed and in uniform and in some cases setting up checkpoints on the roads.
But U.S. State Department spokesman James Rubin, who has been in close contact with KLA leaders since last year, said he did not expect the KLA presence to become a problem.
``It is NATO, not the KLA or anybody else, that will be in charge of security for all of Kosovo. The Kosovo Liberation Army leadership understands that and we intend to work closely with them on arrangements for demilitarization in the coming days,'' he told his daily briefing.
The spokesman drew a distinction between demilitarization and the KLA handing over its weapons.
``Many families in Kosovo have some sort of weapons, and the idea that every weapon is going to be removed from every man or woman in Kosovo is fantasy land,'' he said.
``The question is whether they are demilitarized in such a way that they're not a military unit,'' he added.
Craddock said his soldiers had instructions not to disarm routinely armed members of the KLA.
``However we have got to make sure that we defuse potentially explosive situations. We don't want armed KLA in proximity of withdrawing Serbs,'' he added.
"When that occurs our soldiers will intervene and ask KLA to back off... If they comply then they go about their way.
``If not and if in the assessment of the leader at that location there is a threat to good order and discipline ... then they are instructed if needed to disarm the individual, whether it be a Serb, a KLA, whoever,'' the brigadier said.
Rubin suggested that NATO would turn a blind eye to the KLA presence until all Serb forces leave the province, as they agreed in last week's military deal with NATO.
``It's unrealistic to have expected the KLA to have laid down their arms on day one, when so many Serb soldiers -- tens of thousands -- remain,'' he said.
He condemned both attacks on Serbs by ethnic Albanians and attacks on ethnic Albanians by Serbs but did not blame the KLA for any of the several killings of the past few days.
In Copenhagen, KLA political leader Hashim Thaqi said regular troops
of the KLA were not responsible for freshly reported acts of violence by
ethnic Albanians.
