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BELGRADE, Yugoslavia, Sept. 5 (UPI) Russian First Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Andreev arrived in Belgrade for talks with top Yugoslav officials and immediately joined some Serbian political leaders in implied criticism of Bernard Kouchner, chief of the United Nations mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).
Andreev is scheduled to meet with Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic and is expected to see President Slobodan Milosevic for talks on Serbia, Kosovo and the preservation of Yugoslavia's territorial integrity.
Other topics will include the renewal of the devastated economy and the development of democratic processes, Belgrade media reported, quoting diplomatic sources.
Commenting on Kouchner's decision to introduce the German mark as legal tender in Kosovo and set up a customs service on its border with Macedonia, Andreev told reporters the UNMIK should not take any steps leading to a protectorate in Kosovo.
On the process of disarming the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) Andreev said Russia is for strict and consistent respect for U.N. Security Council resolution 1244 and added: "We understand demilitarization of the KLA in the full sense of the word. This applies not only to the surrender of weapons but also to demobilization of the KLA."
Andreev said Russia would oppose any half-baked variant of KLA disarmament and the watering down of the Security Council resolution. He said the UNMIK's role in Kosovo would be discussed during Kouchner's visit to Moscow on Sept. 14 and 15.
On the political situation in Serbia and Yugoslavia, Andreev said the holding of early elections in Serbia and Yugoslavia was an internal matter of the country, which should be in harmony with constitutional provisions.
Andreev is due to meet with some opposition leaders as well. His delegation includes the ambassador in the foreign ministry and one of the international negotiators on Kosovo in France, Boris Mayorski.
The Serbian Radical Party, a coalition partner of the ruling Socialist Party led by Milosevic, accused Kouchner today of persecuting and exterminating the remaining Serbian population in Kosovo.
"Daily intimate meetings of this quasi-peacemaker (Kouchner) with (ethnic) Albanian terrorist leaders only confirms the fact that the creation of a pure (ethnic) Albanian State on Serbian lands heralds the American aim of bringing this part of Europe under their occupation," the party said in a statement.
The opposition Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) said today that the U. N. Security Council must allow Yugoslav police and military forces to return to Kosovo, because KFOR and the UNMIK are not implementing the tasks given them by the Security Council resolution on Kosovo.
The SPO said in a statement the return of the Yugoslav army and police is the only way to restore peace, security and lawfulness to Kosovo for all those live there.
The leader of Kosovo Serbs and president of the Serbian Resistance Movement, Momcilo Trajkovic, said in a statement published in the Belgrade newspaper Blic today that moves such as setting up a customs service and forming an ethnic Albanian national guard mean the creation of a state of Kosovo.
"Kouchner's behavior and decisions exclude the Serbian side from any cooperation and joint work. Nothing else is left to us but to demand his replacement," Trajkovic said.