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PRISTINA (Reuters) - Intense negotiations on the future of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) guerrilla force dragged on past a Sunday midnight deadline with no word of a final accord.
NATO and leaders of the KLA had said earlier the KLA would cease to exist as of midnight, but there was no formal announcement as both sides sought to iron out disagreements over what is to become of the 10,000-strong force.
Hashim Thaqi, prime minister of a self-proclaimed KLA provisional government, left the hilltop headquarters of the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force shortly before the midnight deadline, reporters at the scene said.
A source close to the KLA said Thaqi would brief regional KLA commanders meeting at the provisional government headquarters on the progress of the talks with NATO. He returned to the KFOR headquarters shortly before one a.m. Monday.
In the negotiations were KFOR commander Lieutenant General Mike Jackson and the United Nations special representative to Kosovo, Bernard Kouchner.
KLA sources had told Reuters an agreement was expected to be signed at midnight, the deadline for the KLA to turn in all weapons under an agreed phased 90-day disarmament process.
NATO has said the KLA has complied with the terms of that undertaking and had turned in 10,000 weapons to by midnight.
But it has never been made clear if the weapons surrendered were those that were agreed by NATO and the KLA when they signed the disarmament agreement in June. Many of the arms reporters have seen at collection centers are in poor condition or are virtual antiques.
NATO has been pressuring the KLA to endorse a plan to create a civilian, uniformed Kosovo Corps which would enlist many former KLA members to deal with reconstruction, disasters, humanitarian relief and other emergencies.
Some KLA leaders want a force that would be more military in nature and be permitted to carry more than the 200 sidearms that NATO officials have said the Kosovo Corps would be allowed.
Thaqi, at a KLA farewell parade in Pristina Saturday, said that although the KLA would not be a guerrilla army anymore, it would be transformed into a "defense force for all Kosovo citizens."
Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority is fearful that when NATO forces eventually pull out of the province, Serb forces ousted under terms of the peace deal that ended the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia could return, and that Kosovo Albanians would by then have no army to defend themselves.
Western authorities running Kosovo under a U.N. mandate say NATO must remain the only military power and have said the Kosovo Corps should consist only of 3,000 active members, 2,000 reservists and be strictly non-military in nature. In the village of Plana, 20 miles north of Pristina, KLA guerrillas who had been guarding a weapons depot in the zone run by French peacekeeping troops brought down and folded up a red KLA flag that had been flying over the depot at midnight, handing over all responsibility to the KFOR soldiers.
"In the second phase of disarmament the most important thing is to rebuild Kosovo so that all the people who live in Kosovo can be free, have jobs and live normally," said Ajet Bajrami, a major in the KLA's 141st Brigade.
"I think with KFOR we can do this," he added.