Putin urges action on Kosovo visit

Kostunica greets Putin on his historic visit

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- Russian President Vladimir Putin has followed up talks with Yugoslavia's President Vojislav Kostunica with a visit to Kosovo.

Putin and Kostunica earlier said the troubled province, currently under NATO-led peacekeepers' control, was the main source of instability in the Balkans.

The two leaders also urged the international community to work to disarm Albanian "terrorists."

Putin said: "Stability in the region is seriously threatened, above all from national religious extremism and intolerance, the main source of which today is in Kosovo."

The Russian leader then flew to the province's capital Pristina on his first visit to Kosovo. He was greeted by a Russian military honour guard as he disembarked with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov.

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He immediately set off for a visit to a Russian military base nearby. Russia has around 3,000 troops in a force of about 40,000 peacekeepers in Kosovo.

They were also to meet the commander of the NATO-led force, Danish Lt. Gen. Thorstein Skiaker, and representatives of the U.N. Security Council on the second day of their visit.

After Sunday morning talks with Kostunica, Putin urged world leaders to ensure ethnic Albanian "terrorists" lay down their guns, pledging that the Russians, who share Orthodox Slav roots with the Serbs, are ready to play their part.

Peacekeepers remained in Kosovo following NATO's 1999 bombing campaign against Yugoslavia -- under former leader Slobodan Milosevic -- to stop repression of the province's ethnic Albanian majority.

In recent weeks peacekeepers have been tightening its control of the Kosovo-Macedonia border to try to staunch a flow of weapons and men. Ethnic Albanian rebels are currently battling government troops in Macedonia's northern mountains.

Kostunica said the international community had made many mistakes in Kosovo.

"The crisis in Kosovo, and many wrong moves by the international community in Kosovo, have caused instability in the entire region -- in southern Serbia, Macedonia and lately even in northern Greece, where ethnic Albanian terrorists have also made their presence felt," he said.

"We also spoke about the importance of a regional conference that would reaffirm the principle of the inviolability of borders, territorial integrity and, within that, protecting the rights of minorities -- a conference that would once and for all put and end to the trend of redrawing borders in the Balkans and wars in the region."

Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister Miroljub Labus said that the idea for a conference came from both Belgrade and Moscow.

Putin did not mention the conference in his statement to reporters or indicate whether he had discussed the idea at his summit meeting on Saturday with U.S. President George Bush.

The first meeting between the Russian and U.S. leader, part of Bush's first European tour, in Slovenia appeared warm.

After nearly two hours of face-to-face talks on Saturday, Bush said he felt he could "trust" Putin. "We can make the world safer, more prosperous."

The leaders agreed to meet for summits in each country. Bush invited Putin to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, in the autumn. Putin returned the courtesy with an invitation to his home in Moscow.