KOSOVO REBELS RULE OUT RUSSIAN PEACEKEEPERS.

Discomfort among leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) over a possible Russian peacekeeping role in Yugoslavia could yet complicate efforts to hammer out a Kosovo peace settlement. U.S. officials said yesterday that ethnic Albanian leaders in the independence- minded province were close to signing a Western-sponsored peace plan which could bring an end the conflict. Acceptance of the deal by the Kosovo Albanian side, in turn, would make it easier for Western leaders to pressure Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic into signing the peace plan as well.

In talks yesterday with U.S. peace envoy Christopher Hill, however, KLA leaders expressed two reservations about the Western settlement plan. They opposed, first, the stipulation that they must lay down their arms. They were said to be equally opposed to including any Russian troops in the NATO peacekeeping contingent which the West has insisted must be deployed in Kosovo in order to enforce the peace settlement. Hill observed that including the Russian troops “was not in the Rambouillet agreement” and that KLA leaders are so far “not prepared to accept it” (Reuters, AP, March 8). The invitation to Russia to join the NATO contingent was part of an effort to make deployment of the NATO troops palatable to both Moscow and Belgrade. The two countries have consistently opposed that part of the Western peace plan on the grounds that it would constitute a violation of Yugoslavia’s sovereignty. They have said, moreover, that if troops are introduced into Kosovo, they must carry the flag of the UN or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and not of NATO. That sort of arrangement is unacceptable to the West.

RUSSIAN MERCENARIES SAID TO BE INVOLVED IN AFRICAN CONFLICTS.