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PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Sept. 24 (UPI) Yugoslav Army soldiers have held exercises near the border between Kosovo and Serbia in the last several days, as have NATO-led KFOR troops, according to a KFOR spokesman.
The VJ, as the Yugoslav Army is called, also has strayed several times into a five-kilometer buffer zone between Kosovo and Serbia set by a military-technical agreement that ended the 72-day NATO bombing campaign in June, said Roland Lavoie, a KFOR spokesman here.
The infractions have not been seen as non-compliance with the agreement, Lavoie said. KFOR troops make note of every infraction, pointing them out to the Yugoslav soldiers in regular meetings between the two groups.
KFOR troops also have held exercises on land and by air, Lavoie said.
"In the military business, if you don't defend the border, it's just an invitation for the other guy to come in," Lavoie said.
In addition to border police, the Yugoslavs also have vehicle checkpoints along roads north and east out of Kosovo, but no fixed checkpoints within the five-kilometer zone, Lavoie said.
Many Yugoslav Army troops continue to mass in Raska, a Serbian town about 10 kilometers north of the Kosovo border, said Oliver Ivanovic, president of the Serbian National Council, a former Serbian administrative body in Kosovo that now has representatives only in the northern region of the province.
"VJ forces will not come into the province without the permission of both KFOR and the United Nations in Kosovo," Ivanovic said. "The people will be very pleased if they can see a small number of army troops, if they can see safety," Ivanovic said. "A hundred will be enough to make people feel safe."