By Michael Roddy
PRISTINA, Serbia (Reuters) - NATO military chief General Wesley Clark Monday rejected any significant return of Serb security forces to Kosovo and said there was evidence of Serb efforts to upset the province's ``fragile'' peace.
Clark also said NATO and the former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) rebels were close to agreement on a civil defense-type of force that would include many of the former rebels.
But he said the so-called ``Kosovo Corps'' would be almost exclusively civilian in nature.
Clark, asked about a growing push within Serbia to send some Yugoslav security forces back to Kosovo, said bluntly: ``They left, they're going to stay out.''
He said that under the phased timetable for disarming the KLA and beefing up civilian security forces in Kosovo, the eventual return of some elements of Serbian security could be envisaged.
``There'll be discussion about which Serb personnel will come back in for purposes of, let's say, demining, a presence at monuments, maybe a presence at the border, but purely presence,'' Clark said.
``This is not a re-entry of Serb forces, in fact the re-entry of Serb forces is expressly prohibited,'' he said.
A wholesale return of Serb security personnel, elements of which are accused of taking part in the massacres and looting of ethnic Albanians during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, was barred under U.N. agreements, Clark said.
In a rejoinder to Serb allegations that Kosovo is descending into chaos under NATO peacekeeping forces, Clark said there were indications of Serb efforts to deliberately undermine security in the province, which came under U.N. and NATO administration at the end of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in June.
Clark said he was ``increasingly concerned by the evidence that we see of organized Serb efforts to cause a little bit of disruption here and there and bring increasing pressure on this fragile community.''
He said that in an incident on September 6 when Russian peacekeeping forces shot dead three Serbs who had attacked a car full of ethnic Albanians, one of the Serbs was found to be carrying an identification card of the Serbian Interior Ministry police (MUP), blamed by ethnic Albanians for many of the Kosovo massacres.
The NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force warned earlier this week of increasing signs of activities by Serbs wearing clothing resembling that of paramilitaries.
Clark added that he had met the KLA's chief military commander, General Agim Ceku, and said there was general agreement on what the ``Kosovo Corps'' should be.
The corps is to be formed sometime after the initial disarmament demobilization period for the KLA comes to an end next Sunday.
``It always has been an unarmed, essentially unarmed non- military civil service kind of a responsibility,'' Clark said.
``In other words, emergency assistance, emergency humanitarian assistance, some means of coordinating for assistance across the regions, reconstruction assistance, this is what this is about.
``This is a non-military function. It's never been considered to be
anything else and there's never been any discussion about it. And the UCK
(Albanian initials for the KLA) has accepted that as well,'' Clark said.
