PEACE NEGOTIATIONS WATCH

Afghanistan EU envoy pledges to remain firm behind Afghanistan's reconstruction

Armenia/Azerbaijan Armenia condemns Azerbaijan for preventing military officers from attending NATO conference

Chechnya Council of Europe to conduct "targeted" missions in Chechnya this year

Congo South Africa, Congo launch joint commission to strengthen ties, help Congo recover from war

Georgia/Abkhazia US offers aid to shut down Russian military bases in Georgia

Philippines Muslim peace talks, terrorism to top agenda of Badawi visit to Philippines

Serbia & Montenegro Serbia's stability depends on next government upholding democratic goals, foreign minister says

Sri Lanka Norwegian peace envoys discuss Sri Lankan peace with Tamil Tiger rebels

Sudan UN special envoy calls on Sudan to give aid agencies more access to Darfur; calls refugee situation in Chad serious

Peace Negotiations Watch is prepared by the Public International Law and Policy Group in cooperation with American University and is made possible by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

An international meeting to discuss assisting Afghanistan in its reconstruction was likely to take place soon, European Union envoy Javier Solana said Wednesday during a one-day official visit to the country to pledge on-going European support. Solana, who had a full day of meetings with top Afghan and military officials in Kabul, said the EU was very engaged in Afghanistan and would continue to be so as the country entered a new phase following the adoption of a constitution which ushers in democratic reforms.

"I think that people are coming to the conclusion... that what is needed now in a rather short period of time... is a meeting of an international nature where questions pertaining to security, questions pertaining to reconstruction and some analysis of how to get the added value out of this situation" are addressed, he said. The EU is the second-largest donor to Afghanistan after the US, giving some 250 million Euros to the country in 2003. This amount does not include the military expenditure of the European countries which have troops here, including France, Germany and Italy.

"We will continue to be engaged in the process of reconstruction," Solana said. Solana, who congratulated Afghanistan on its January 4 adoption of a new constitution, said he was pleased with the implementation of the Bonn accords, agreed to as a framework for rebuilding Afghanistan following the late 2001 ousting of the hardline Islamic Taliban regime. The EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy said he had a "very good exchange of views" with President Hamid Karzai during a lunch at which they discussed the upcoming Afghan elections.

The elections have been a source of some international disquiet due to the slow registration of voters -- with just over three percent of the 10 million people eligible registered at the last count. Furthermore, spiralling violence in the south and southeast of the country could prevent people from participating in polls. Solana said he favoured presidential and parliamentary elections being held at the same time and that he was confident they could go ahead as scheduled for the summer. "I think with goodwill and a little bit of pressure the elections will be able to take place, to be organised in time. In time that means before the end of July," he said. Increased support from NATO, which now oversees the peacekeeping International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, was also likely, Solana said. "It is my conviction that it will be an increase, and it will be an increase that will allow them to take responsibility for the control of more PRTs," he said in reference to the civil-military Provincial Reconstruction Teams now operating around the country to build infrastructure and enhance security.

Carlotta Gall, The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune, 1/16/04

For Ahmad Shah Mirdad, head of monitoring at the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, the adoption of a new constitution by the loya jirga this month was something of a nonevent. He spent a fruitless day this week trying to help two families whose houses in Kabul have been forcibly occupied by the Afghan intelligence service, the National Security Directorate. "The intelligence office did not cooperate at all, so we will try to get the police to help," he said. "Sometimes a government order does not work, and often the order of President Hamid Karzai is ignored."

"In Kabul," he went on, "where the government is more or less in power, things are better than elsewhere, but people are still seizing houses even in downtown Kabul." In the provinces, especially in remote areas where self-appointed commanders reign, there is no rule of law at all and horrendous human rights abuses are occurring, he said. The adoption of a constitution was unquestionably a major step for Afghanistan. But the West should be under no illusions about the document's value to a nation bristling with arms, one that would almost certainly backslide into chaos and factional warfare were it not for the military forces of NATO and the United States. Afghans certainly are not. "It's a good Constitution and will bring change if implemented," said Abdul Latif Amiri, a delegate to the loya jirga, the council that decided on the document, from the southern city of Kandahar. "But implementation is not possible while there are still arms all over the country."

Even the United Nations special representative, Lakhdar Brahimi, spoke in an unusually critical manner at the closing ceremonies of the loya jirga. "The people of Afghanistan are afraid of the guns that are held by the wrong people and used not to defend them and not to wage a jihad, because the time for jihad is finished, but to terrorize people, to take advantage for their own and the people who are close to them," he said. Since it opened last year, the Afghan Human Rights Commission has recorded 1,700 complaints of violations from around the country and has investigated about half of them. They include 225 accusations of murder, which, according to Mirdad, all represent incidents of abuse of power because they involve commanders or other officials. "We don't look into individual murders, only when it concerns an abuse of power," he said.

Still fresh in memory for Mirdad, a quiet man in a suit and woolen scarf, is the day in October when a distraught family arrived with the headless and armless body of their relative. "They brought it here to the office -- it was terrible," he said. The dead man was Sayed Habib, from Parwan Province, north of Kabul, who had made the mistake of asking a commander to repay money he had borrowed. The Human Rights Commission successfully pursued the case and forced the police to arrest two men, Sardar Agha and his brother Shirin Agha. Both men are former mujahedeen and still serve under their old commander as part of the Defense Ministry.

There are also 242 cases of confiscation of land, 195 cases of destruction of property, 66 incidents of torture, 82 of illegal detention and 56 of looting, all involving commanders or local leaders, whether self-appointed or government officials. These are only the cases that the commission knows about, and because of the extreme lawlessness in some places, it cannot investigate all of them. "The cases we cannot follow up are where the government has no power, and the governors and commanders are selected by themselves," Mirdad said. "The level of the rule of law varies, but for example in Uruzgan Province, in Daikundi and Sharestan districts, since the government does not rule there, there are all types of violations -- seizing and burning of property, kidnapping of women, rape, murder and forced marriage," he said. "Also we find innocent people are put in jail for a very long time and for no reason," he said.

Many of the delegates at the loya jirga brought up similar complaints, either in their speeches to the assembly or in interviews. Most famously, a young woman, Malalai Joya, called for the "criminals" in the assembly -- a clear reference to the mujahedeen faction leaders who killed thousands during vicious in-fighting in the early 1990's and continue to prey on people -- to be put on trial rather than be allowed to preside over the process of drafting a new constitution. The paradox of approving a new constitution while the rule of law is ignored countrywide was not lost on the 502 delegates at the loya jirga. For sitting in the front row of the assembly for the three weeks of debate were the most notorious warlords of all, the leaders of the main mujahedeen factions -- Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, Burhanuddin Rabbani, Sheik Mohammad Asif Mohseni and General Abdul Rashid Dostum, a former Communist.

It was to them that Joya was referring in her outburst. Behind the scenes, Brahimi and the United States ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, reportedly used the men's own brutal histories against them in arguments. When Sayyaf and Rabbani pushed too hard for their desires in the Constitution, they were reminded that they could face trial for war crimes. Dostum was told that he had no credibility in Kabul and the South where people remembered his cruelty, according to one official close to the negotiations.

"These people are criminals and they have to answer to the people, and I hope they will not be in the new Parliament," said Sima Samar, the head of the Human Rights Commission, just minutes after the Constitution was approved. Yet from their front row seats they remain overwhelmingly powerful. When the police chief of a Kabul district was killed several months ago, the Interior Ministry named a replacement, a trained professional. But the man never took up his post. Instead, Sayyaf himself named and installed a man loyal to him.

Armenia/Azerbaijan

Armenia condemns Azerbaijan for preventing military officers from attending NATO conference

Armenia condemned Azerbaijan on Wednesday for preventing three Armenian military officers from attending a conference under the aegis of NATO's Partnership for Peace. The Foreign Ministry said that the three officers were not allowed to board a plane at the Istanbul airport on Tuesday to travel to the Azerbaijani capital, Baku. Azerbaijani authorities requested that the officers be turned away, the ministry said.

The officers were to have taken part in a conference to prepare for the Cooperative Best Effort-2004 military exercise, which is to be held in Azerbaijan. "This unprecedented step by the Azerbaijani authorities throws into doubt the achievement of the true goals of the program, which include establishing an atmosphere of mutual trust and widening the dialogue between countries in the Euro-Atlantic region," said Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian. He said that Armenia hoped its partners in the program would take appropriate steps to respond to Azerbaijan's move. Armenia and Azerbaijan are at odds over Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave in Azerbaijan under the control of ethnic Armenian forces.

Burundi

Burundian President Domitien Ndayizeye met Friday with his French counterpart Jacques Chirac during a visit to Paris as part of a European tour aimed at winning much-needed international aid for his impoverished war-torn country. "Since 1993, we've been facing an unprecedented crisis and international aid is vital for peace," Ndayizeye told a news conference after talks with Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin on French aid and the political situation in Burundi.

"I set out on this trip to revive our economy. I'm already satisfied with what donors promised us in Brussels but, in truth, it's a Marshall Plan my country needs," he said, recalling the rehabilitation of Europe after World War II. Chirac said France would "make a maximum effort" to help Burundi in its efforts to secure aid, the French leader's aides quoted him as saying after talks with Ndayizeye.

Ndayizeye on Thursday met with French International Cooperation Minister Pierre Andre Wiltzer on French aid. Ndayizeye came from Brussels where at a meeting of donors he was promised 1.032 billion dollars (820 million euros) in aid to get Burundi, emerging from more than a decade of conflict, back on its feet. The president expressed hope that France do more and that the aid earmarked in Brussels, which must get the green light from the International Monetary Fund, "arrives quickly."

Wiltzer said in Brussels that France would release 20 million euros in bilateral aid over three years, and also cancel debts worth a similar amount. France wants to focus on two areas -- supporting a normalisation in relations between Burundi and international financial institutions and helping refugees and displaced people, sources close to Wiltzer said. Ndayizeye stressed Friday that "we will get our country back on track to get out of this mess. We will mobilise our energy and the people of Burundi."

Burundi, Ndayizeye said, had reached a "stage of no return on the path to peace and security." "We're still on the path today. That's a decided and irreversible process towards peace," he said, admitting, however, that there continued to be clashes with rebels from Burundi's last active Hutu rebel group, the National Liberation Forces (FNL), in the rural Bujumbura province.

Several people were killed in clashes Thursday in western Burundi between rebels and the Burundi army. The military said six rebels were killed while locals said the toll included three civilians and two soldiers. Ndayizeye also accused FNL fighters of being behind the death of the Vatican envoy to the country, Michael Courtney, who was killed in a December 29 ambush. "Our investigations allow us to say that FNL (National Liberation Forces) fighters" were responsible for the ambush in which Courtney, an Irish national, was fatally shot, said Ndayizeye.

"We have proof, but we don't know at what level the act was planned," he said. The rebels's spokesman, Pasteur Habimana, later told AFP by telephone in Burundi: "We swear solemnly before God, the international community and Burundi that the FNL are in no way responsible for the assassination of Monsignor Courtney." Despite the accusations, Ndayizeye said he intended to meet with representatives of the FNL in the Netherlands on Sunday or Monday to ask them to join the government.

"I am going to meet a strong delegation which has, at the very least, the mandate of their chief Agathon Rwasa", he said. "I am going to tell them that we are prepared to share with them, that they have a place in the political institutions if they want to join us," he said. Burundi has been riven since 1993 by civil war, pitting Hutu rebels against the small country's Tutsi minority. Some 300,000 people have been killed in the decade-long conflict.

All the other rebel groups, including the largest, Forces for the Defence of Democracy (FDD), have struck peace deals with the interim government and even joined the transitional regime. But the FNL had long refused to meet with the government -- even when it came under the leadership of Ndayizeye, a Hutu -- saying that true power in Burundi lay with the Tutsi-dominated army. On January 5, however, the diehard rebel group dropped its staunch refusal to negotiate with the administration and agreed to hold preliminary talks with Ndayizeye.

The Burundian government has proof that the Vatican envoy to the tiny war-torn country, Michael Courtney, was killed in an ambush mounted by Burundi's last active Hutu rebel group, President Domitien Ndayizeye told reporters here Friday. "Our investigations allow us to say that FNL (National Liberation Forces) fighters" were responsible for the ambush on December 29 in which Courtney, an Irish national, was fatally shot, said Ndayizeye, who is on a mini-tour of Europe to generate support for Burundi's fledgling peace process. "We have proof, but we don't know at what level the act was planned," he said.

Courtney died at the Prince Louis Rwagasore clinic after sustaining three gunshot wounds when his car was ambushed about 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of the Burundi capital, Bujumbura. The attack was immediately blamed on the FNL, both by the army and high-ranking officials in the church, but the rebel group, which is the only one of four insurgent movements that has refused to join Burundi's peace process, on Friday once again said it was innocent.

"We swear solemnly before God, the international community and Burundi that the FNL are in no way responsible for the assassination of Monsignor Courtney," the rebels's spokesman, Pasteur Habimana, told AFP by telephone in Burundi. Despite the accusations, Ndayizeye said he intended to meet with representatives of the FNL in the Netherlands on Sunday or Monday "to ask them to join the transition government."

Burundi's President Domitien Ndayizeye was Sunday to meet with the last active rebel group of his war-wracked country, in a "first contact meeting" in the Netherlands, the Dutch foreign ministry and a rebel spokesman said. Talks between officials of the National Liberation Forces (FNL) and Ndayizeye are expected to continue Monday, and possibly through Tuesday, ministry spokeswoman Ivonne van Hees told AFP. "The different parties will not make any announcements so as not to disturb the serenity of the meeting," she added.

In Burundi on Sunday evening, rebel spokesman Pasteur Habimana confirmed that an initial meeting would be held that night but stressed there was no question of initiating negotiations at this stage. The FNL delegation "told me both parties are already at the venue for the meeting with Ndayizeye... the introductions will start very soon but the meeting proper will take place tomorrow (Monday)," Habimana told AFP by phone. The meeting follows a surprise U-turn decision on January 5 by the FNL, whose members are drawn from the central African country's Hutu majority, to meet Ndayizeye, after years of shunning appeals to negotiate.

Habimana stressed this encounter did not constitute a total climb-down from this position. "We don't at all agree to negotiate with the government. This is about meeting the father of the nation," he said. He added that the FNL delegation would call upon the president to halt attacks on the FNL by a rival armed Hutu group, the Forces for the Defence of Democracy, which signed a peace deal with the government in November and which has since joined its ranks and deployed troops alongside the regular army.

Burundi has been riven since 1993 by civil war, pitting Hutu rebels against the dominant Tutsi minority. Some 300,000 people have been killed in the decade-long conflict. Other rebel groups have made peace with the transition government, but the FNL had long held out, claiming that despite the leadership of Ndayizeye, a Hutu, true power in Burundi lay with the Tutsi-dominated army. Ndayizeye, who is on a European tour aimed at winning reconstruction aid for his central African country, said on Friday he would ask the FNL to join the transition government.

"I am going to meet a strong delegation which has, at the very least, the mandate of their chief Agathon Rwasa", he said. "I am going to tell them that we are prepared to share with them, that they have a place in the political institutions if they want to join us." The Dutch foreign ministry spokeswoman said the meeting, which follows a failed attempt at talks in Kenya in December, was taking place in the Netherlands "because of the good relations we have with both parties".

Chechnya

Council of Europe experts will no longer be stationed permanently in Chechnya but will instead have a "targeted presence" this year under an agreement reached with Russia, the pan-European organization said Friday. Under the deal signed in late December, Council of Europe Secretary General Walter Schwimmer and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov agreed on a "new form of cooperation in Chechnya, calling for the participation of Council of Europe experts in the implementation of nine concrete projects," an official said. The rights and democracy body said the programs involved focus on assistance to the office of Russian President Vladimir Putin's special representative to guarantee human rights and freedom in Chechnya, local autonomy and education.

Under an agreement reached in April 2000, two experts from the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe had been stationed permanently in Chechnya. From now on, future experts will be deployed on an ad hoc basis. "It will be a presence targeted on a concrete issue," the official in charge of the case here said, stressing that talks were continuing with Russian authorities on "concrete modalities" for deploying the experts.

The official said the last two council experts left Chechnya last April after an attack on their convoy in Grozny. The experts were not hurt. Specific missions by Council of Europe experts continued, with the last one in September. If all goes well, the next mission to Chechnya could take place late February or early March. The pan-European Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) ended its presence in Chechnya on January 1, 2003 as it failed to reached agreement with Russia on extending it. Moscow wanted to change the terms of the OSCE mission, to have it focus its activities on distribution of humanitarian aid.

The giant tent camps in Ingushetia that have absorbed thousands of Chechen refugees fleeing the fighting at home will be dismantled by March 1, a senior Russian official said Friday in a move apparently ordered by the Kremlin. "By March 1, we will fulfill your order," said Stanislav Ilyasov, Russia's minister for Chechen affairs, told Russian President Vladimir Putin during a Kremlin meeting, in remarks shown on Russia's NTV television. Ilyasov told Putin that 4,200 refugees remain living in three camps in Ingushetia, but that families return home day. More than 500 people returned to Chechnya already this year, Acting Chechen Prime Minister Eli Isayev was quoted as telling the ITAR-Tass news agency.

Russian authorities have repeatedly insisted that stability is being restored in Chechnya, even as the war drags through its fifth year and fighting persists. Five servicemen were killed and five wounded in rebel attacks and land mine explosions in the last 24 hours, an official in the Moscow-backed Chechen administration said Friday. The vast tent camps in Ingushetia have embarrassed Russian officials as a visible sign of the continuing instability, and officials have repeatedly announced and then delayed plans to close them. The latest closure date, set for March 1, would come almost two weeks ahead of the March 14 presidential election.

Some refugees and human rights groups have complained that the Russian government is forcing people to return, a charge Russian officials deny. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in September expressed concern that authorities were intermittently shutting off utilities at the 1,000-person Bella Camp in a bid to pressure the refugees to return home. Refugees at other camps reported similar pressure. Ilyasov stressed that no one would be forced home, but added that authorities working to close the camps were facing problems from non-governmental groups, whom he complained were "creating obstacles." Putin interrupted Ilyasov and told him that while "they may be creating very difficult conditions for you, they care about those people who live there and you must take this into consideration," according to remarks aired on television.

The Interfax news agency later quoted an Ingush official as saying that it would not press for closure of the tent camps by a certain date. "The return of refugees to Chechnya from Ingushetia will be an exclusively voluntary process, and the republic's authorities will not set any deadline," said Isa Merzhoyev, press secretary for the Ingush president. Many refugees say that after years of war, nothing remains to return to; the economy is shattered and housing destroyed. Ilyasov promised Putin that efforts to create jobs in the republic continued, adding that nearly half of Chechnya's 1.04 million population was fit to work, Interfax said.

The current war began in September 1999 when Russian forces swept in following incursions by Chechnya-based fighters into neighboring Dagestan and the deaths of some 300 people in apartment bombings blamed on Chechen militants. Russian troops had withdrawn from Chechnya in 1996 after a 20-month war against separatists, leaving the republic de-facto independent. Also Friday, Interfax quoted a respected Russian human rights activist, Memorial head Oleg Orlov, as saying that at last 473 residents of Chechnya were abducted last year. Orlov said 48 of them have been found dead and 156 released or ransomed, while the fate of the others was unknown, according to Interfax.

Congo

South Africa, Congo launch joint commission to strengthen ties, help Congo recover from war

Calling Congo a "microcosm of all Africa," President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa on Wednesday signed a pact with his Congolese counterpart, Joseph Kabila, establishing a joint commission to help Congo regain its footing after five years of war. Mbeki - who helped broker a power-sharing deal to end to Congo's 1998-2003 war - joined Kabila aboard a riverboat on the Congo river to sign the deal setting up a bilateral group to promote inter-country ties.

The accord also is meant to help Congo reshape its defense and security forces, political culture, and vanished tourism industry. "Congo represents a microcosm of all Africa," Mbeki told Congolese lawmakers earlier. "We need a renaissance, a reconstruction, a rebirth of Congo," he said in the address to Congo's parliament, before the signing ceremony aboard the 200 meter (650 foot) ferryboat - originally built for Mobutu Sese Seko, the late dictator of Congo, then called Zaire. Mbeki and Kabila will directly oversee the bilateral working group, Congo Foreign Minister Antoine Ghonda told reporters in Congo's capital, Kinshasa. No other details were given of the commission's eventual work. Mbeki, who arrived Tuesday, was expected to return to South Africa later Wednesday.

The war in Congo broke out in August 1998, drawing in soldiers from at least six African nations. Aid groups estimate more than 3 million people died, most from famine and disease aggravated by the conflict. The United Nations accuses some foreign combatants - including Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe - of taking advantage of the strife to loot Congo's wealth of gold, diamonds and other mineral wealth. A series of peace deals and U.N. intervention helped end major fighting and usher out foreign armies. In June, the Congolese government and former rebels formed a transitional administration - with four vice presidents - under accords brokered by Mbeki and others. Violence has continued in eastern Congo as rival tribal militias fight each other, and rebels from Burundi and Rwanda continue to clash with Congolese armed groups.

On the political front, many doubt whether the ungainly power-sharing government is making needed progress toward 2005 elections. The country is revamping its armed forces and other governmental services, degraded by the war and decades of ruinous rule by the late Mobutu and immediate successor Laurent Kabila, the current president's father.

Georgia/Abkhazia

The United States is willing to help finance the closure of Russia's two military bases in Georgia, a top US official said Tuesday in a bid to ease relations between Tbilisi's new leadership and Moscow. "We intend to provide necessary financial aid to help the process," B. Lynn Pascoe, a deputy assistant secretary of state, said during a visit to Tbilisi, without providing details. "Our main concern is the question of military bases in the territories where they are not welcome," Pascoe told reporters following talks with acting president Nino Burjanadze.

"We are constantly raising and do raise in talks with the Russians the question of their obligations on bases withdrawal." Russia has two army bases remaining in Georgia since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. Moscow has agreed to withdraw from Georgia but negotiations over the timetable for the pull-out have reached an impasse. Georgia demands that the bases be closed down within three years but the Russians say the withdrawal will take up to 10 years. Pascoe's comments followed those made last week by a top Russian military official, who said Moscow could consider speeding up the withdrawal if Georgia finds financing.

The issue of Russian bases in the strategic Caucasus nation is a sore topic in relations between Moscow and Tbilisi, all the more so since the pro-Western Mikhail Saakashvili was overwhelmingly elected as Georgia's new president on January 4. His inauguration has been scheduled for January 25 and US Secretary of State Colin Powell is due to attend the ceremony. Moscow, which is fighting for influence over the former Soviet republic with Washington, is deeply suspicious of Saakashvili's Western leanings.

On Tuesday, Russia's foreign ministry summoned Georgia's ambassador to register its protest over remarks by the leader of a small political party in Tbilisi who said that Georgians could undertake "any actions" to force Moscow to withdraw the bases. Nodara Notadze, a leader of the fringe National Front party, said at a Tbilisi press conference that Georgian political leaders "could undertake any actions that would force Russia to withdraw its bases from Georgia." "Such incitement is absolutely unacceptable and cannot but deal a blow to bilateral relations, especially in regard to neighboring countries," the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.

"Georgian authorities must understand that any provocations against Russian bases and citizens on Georgian territory could have far-reaching consequences," it said. Saakashvili, who led the protests that peacefully ousted veteran Georgian leader Eduard Shevardnadze in late November, has sought to ease tensions over the fate of the bases. Since his election, he has struck a diplomatic tone in statements on Russia, saying relations with Moscow would be a priority for the new leadership and that his first trip abroad as president would be to the Russian capital. On Monday, Saakashvili said that he was in favor of a "humane" approach to the issue of the Russian bases closure.

"We do not mean to demean the Russian soldiers," said Saakashvili. "We will find the right approach, together with Russia, and maybe someone else will help us in the negotiating process," he said, in an apparent reference to the United States. Georgia has large strategic value to the West because a multi-billion dollar pipeline to carry oil from the Caspian Sea to Western markets runs through it.

The presidium of the government-in-exile of Georgia's separatist Abkhazia region resigned after its chairman lost the support of ethnic Georgian refugees made homeless by the conflict. The mass resignation came late Tuesday, after the presidium began discussing the removal of chairman Tamaz Nadareishvili. He protested the move but later sought what he called a "compromise decision" that resulted in all 16 members tendering their resignations.

The Abkhazian Supreme Council has been based in Georgia since being expelled from Abkhazia during the 1992-3 war for the tiny enclave, which resulted in the formation of a self-proclaimed republic that is not internationally recognized. The council represents about 300,000 mostly ethnic Georgian refugees who fled the war after rebels seized their homes and property.

The refugees' disenchantment with Nadareishvili boiled over when he backed former President Eduard Shevardnadze ahead of the Nov. 2 parliamentary elections. The elections were marred by fraud and peaceful street protests later led to Shevardnadze's resignation.

Many Georgians blamed Shevardnadze for his inability to prevent their nation from splintering amid a tide of separatism in the early 1990s. President-elect Mikhail Saakashvili, who led the protests against Shevardnadze, has said he will seek peaceful dialogue with Abkhazia, but demanded that the ethnic Georgians who fled the province in the war - an estimated 60 percent of Abkhazia's residents - be returned to their homes. Nadareishvili had repeatedly said that the use of force was the only way to solve the conflict.

Indonesia

An appeal court in Aceh province has upheld prison terms handed to five former rebel peace negotiators over treason and terrorism, an official said Wednesday. The ruling against the appeals by the five Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebel negotiators was issued by the Aceh appeal court on December 30, said Al Munar Saidi, the court's deputy chief. "The panel of judges of the court deemed that the district court ruling for the five GAM negotiators was proper," Saidi said. The Banda Aceh district court in October sentenced the five -- Nashiruddin bin Ahmed, Teuku Kamaruzzaman, Teuku Muhammad Usman, Sofyan Ibrahim Tiba and Amni bin Ahmad Marzuki -- to separate jail terms on charges of treason and terrorism. It sentenced Kamaruzzaman, bin Ahmed and Usman to 13 years and Tiba and bin Ahmad Marzuki to 15 and 12 years respectively.

A lawyer for the five, Rufriadi Ramli, told AFP he would appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court. The five were all arrested on May 19, the day the military launched a major offensive to crush the guerrillas. The government and GAM had reached an internationally mediated ceasefire in December last year. It led to a brief but shaky truce in GAM's 27-year battle for independence for the oil- and gas-rich province. But last-ditch talks to save the ceasefire collapsed in Tokyo on May 18 and a day afterwards the government launched its offensive.

The indictments against the five, who were on trial separately, cited bombings, murders, kidnappings and arson allegedly committed by the rebels since the December ceasefire was signed. Negotiators have said the charges against them were trumped up and they had only been seeking a peaceful settlement of the conflict. Judges had also upheld a jail term passed by the same district court to female activist Cut Nur Asyikin, said appeal court's deputy chief Saidi. Asyikin was jailed for 11 years in October for treason for joining rallies in Banda Aceh in November 1999 and 2000 which called for a referendum on independence from Indonesia. Saidi said the court denied a seven-year jail term appeal by GAM activist Irwandi Yusuf and instead increased it to nine years.

Click here to access the Aceh Negotiation Simulation prepared by the Public International Law and Policy Group.

Click here to access the Aceh Peace Module prepared by the Public International Law and Policy Group.

Ivory Coast

France introduced a resolution calling for a 6,240-strong U.N. peacekeeping force in war-divided Ivory Coast, but the United States on Friday expressed reservations about the size and said it wants to examine the justification for the deployment. Ivory Coast's nine-month civil war officially ended in July, but the nation remains divided between rebel-held north and government-held south. A 2003 peace process brokered in France has never fully taken hold and more than 4,000 French and 1,000 West African troops are helping to keep the peace. The French draft, circulated late Thursday, follows Secretary-General Kofi Annan's recommendation for a peacekeeping mission with 6,240 troops, including 200 military observers and 120 staff officers. It would also authorize an international civilian police contingent, though no number was specified. "We have some reservations about the numbers," U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said Friday. "We had heard much lower numbers earlier on, so we really want to take a hard look at that."

The United States also wants to study Annan's report to the Security Council earlier this month justifying the deployment of U.N. troops, Negroponte said. Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo and West African leaders have urged the United Nations to take over the West African peacekeeping mission. In the report, the secretary-general said West African peacekeepers are overstretched and requests for more money from donor nations haven't been answered. But Annan said his recommendation for a U.N. force was contingent on the rebels and government showing progress in getting the peace process back on track by Feb. 4. Ivory Coast, a former French colony, for decades stood as West Africa's most stable and prosperous country. It remains the world's largest cocoa producer, but a 1999 coup has ushered in political, regional, ethnic and religious tensions and violence.

The draft resolution would authorize the U.N. force to monitor the cease-fire and assist the transitional power-sharing government in disarming and repatriating the former combatants. It would also help the government extend its authority throughout the country and prepare for elections in 2005. France has been pressing for approval of the draft resolution by Feb. 4, exactly a year after the Security Council authorized the French force to help enforce the shaky truce. The United Nations now has a small mission in Ivory Coast - 71 military liaison officers who are working with the rebels and the government, as well as with the French and West African peacekeepers. French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie, who discused the Ivory Coast with Annan, said she stressed "the need for this deployment to be done rapidly," particularly since elections will take place in 18 months. But Negroponte said "I don't think we can reach a decision by Feb. 4."

"My family tree has been broken. I have no reason to stay in Ivory Coast and no hope of going back to Liberia," said Morris Keita, who has since 1990 been from one end of the west African state to another searching for refuge. Hundreds of thousands Liberians have fled over the porous eastern border into Ivory Coast since their country was wracked by back-to-back civil wars beginning in 1989. Keita, 27, was one of 50,000 who raced into the country's southwest for what they hoped would be the last time last spring, at the height of a conflict begun in 1999 and pitting two rebel groups against the armies of former Liberian president Charles Taylor.

August brought Taylor's flight into exile and with it a fragile peace encouraged by the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL). Still short of the 15,000 peacekeepers mandated in October by the UN Security Council, UNMIL has only begun to deploy beyond the capital Monrovia, leaving Liberia's porous and volatile border zones in rebel hands and leaving refugees on the other side, peering in. As it prepares for next month's international donor conference, where it is expected to ask for 250 million to 500 million dollars (200 million to 400 million euros) in aid, the war-battered west African state of 3.3 million has made the repatriation of an estimated 320,000 refugees a top priority.

Ivory Coast has learned a lot during the last 14 years of its neighbor's wars, and along with its international donor partners has developed a model program of integration in a string of southwestern villages that currently house some 68,000 Liberian refugees. In villages such as Gozon, some 30 kilometers (18 miles) along rutted roads from the crossroads town of Tabou, Liberian refugees outnumber their Ivorian hosts by more than 10 to one.

Liberian children sit side-by-side with their Ivorian playmates at state-funded schools where the playground chatter is a babble of French, English and ethnic dialects that are shared across the former colonial borders. But the ferocious role played by Liberians in Ivory Coast's own conflict in 2003 has cooled the welcome here, while support offered by Ivory Coast to the smaller rebel Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) has also done little to endear the communities to each other.

"Liberians were responsible for some of the most brutal and atrocious acts during the Ivorian conflict... which led to feelings of rejection by the refugees and animosity," said Sanda Kimbimbi, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) representative for Ivory Coast. "Prevailing political considerations, shifting alliances and the dramatic turns of events all made it rather tough for the refugees."

Ivory Coast, a former beacon of stability for the region, has been rocked since September 2002 by its own civil war, which despite a peace deal signed a year ago has split the country in two and savaged the economy. No longer recipients of Ivorian food assistance, the Liberians have become a burden on their host communities and most sit idle, gazing off into the distance, to where they imagine their homes to be.

"I work in their fields but they don't let me plant so I can feed my family," said Jerry Kerkula, who fled the northeastern Liberian town of Gbarnga with his wife and five children to Gozon in May. "And the gendarmes (police) do what they can to humiliate me every time I try for free movement. I cannot leave, they make me feel like I am a prisoner." Similar tensions hamper relations between Liberia and its northern neighbor Guinea, host to some 90,000 refugees, owing to the Guinea goverment's tacit backing of the main Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) rebels, whose uprising in 1999 sparked the second civil war.

Mindful of the mounting resentment, UNHCR has embarked on a sensitization campaign to encourage tolerance and foster better relations, as part of its requested 39-million-dollar budget to help both the exiled refugees and a half-million internally-displaced Liberians. The reggae crooner Ismael Isaac and pop supergroup Magic System, Ivorian stars famous throughout west Africa, have composed catchy songs for the UNHCR awareness campaign and have performed in villages around the region to mixed Liberian and Ivorian audiences.

An estimated 4,000 people crowded the football pitch in Tabou on Saturday to hear Magic System perform their refugee anthem "SOS Refugee". "We are here to spread a message of peace and love that is African, to tell refugees that they are welcome here," said Magic System's charismatic lead singer Asalfo to a rapt audience earlier on Saturday in Gozon. "There is no more reason to be afraid."

Kashmir

Kashmir separatist groups have accepted an Indian government request to attend their first high-level talks on Jan. 22, the chairman of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference told The Associated Press on Tuesday. Leaders of the Hurriyat, which represents separatist groups based in Indian Kashmir, have in the past rejected talks because India had only assigned low-ranking officials to deal with them. But Lal Krishna Advani, India's deputy prime minister, has said he will participate in the negotiations, which could mark a step toward ending the conflict that has killed 65,000 people in the Himalayan region since 1989. "We received a faxed invitation saying, 'You're invited to discuss various points related to Kashmir with the deputy prime minister on the 22nd of January,"' said Molvi Abbas Ansari, chairman of the Hurriyat. "We will go and talk and then see how the scenario develops," Ansari said. The meeting will be held in New Delhi.

Advani said earlier he was willing to meet the Hurriyat's leaders, but that a date had not been set. Hurriyat represents political and Islamic religious groups that want Kashmir to be independent from Hindu-majority India. However, it does not claim to represent fighting groups, including those who want the region to merge with mostly Muslim Pakistan. Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan but both claim it in full and have fought two wars over its control.

Tuesday's announcement comes after the nuclear rivals said they would embark on peace talks to resolve their dispute over the region. Ansari said he will convene a meeting of all the religious and political parties in the Hurriyat to discuss the arrangements for "our first interaction with the government of India." He also appealed to Indian security forces to call a cease-fire in their fight against the militants. "The rebels also want the Kashmir problem solved. But they are waiting to see signs of India's sincerity," Ansari said. "I expect they will respond positively to a ceasefire by Indian forces."

A possible snag in the talks could result from the Hurriyat's recent split into factions that support a merger with Pakistan and those backing independence. The chief proponents of unity with Pakistan have not been invited to the discussions. Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who heads one breakaway faction, refused to comment on Tuesday's development. Umar Farooq, the chief Muslim cleric in Kashmir and a former Hurriyat chairman, said an effort must be made to include all Kashmiri viewpoints in Hurriyat's preparations.

"We will call every party that has been fighting for Kashmir's rights. Then we will form a plan of action for talks with the government of India. Nothing will be done in haste," he told AP. Shabir Shah, a separatist leader who is not a Hurriyat member, said, "It is a golden opportunity and all parties and groups who have struggled for decades for Kashmir's just resolution, and they should be party to this process." Some of the Hurriyat groups previously were militants, but the organization is legal even though its leaders are often arrested for holding protests. Some have been accused of continuing to support Pakistan-based Islamic militants fighting the 14-year insurgency.

Amid fresh violence and opposition by hardliners, Indian Kashmir's main separatist alliance Thursday named a team for high-level talks with New Delhi and said it favours involvement of Muslim rebels in future dialogue. The team will be headed by Maulana Abbas Ansari, the head of the moderate faction of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, former Hurriyat chief Abdul Gani Bhat told reporters here. Ansari this week received a formal invitation for talks on the future of Kashmir in New Delhi on January 22 with Indian Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani.

Besides Bhat and Ansari, other members of the team are Hurriyat founder Umar Farooq, Bilal Lone, the son of assassinated moderate separatist Abdul Gani Lone, and Fazal Haque Qureshi. Qureshi had facilitated talks between India and the members of the dominant rebel group Hizbul Mujahedin in July 2000 after Hizbul called for a unilateral ceasefire that was reciprocated by New Delhi. However, the ceasefire was called off by Hizbul within a fortnight. Bhat, speaking at the end of a Hurriyat meeting at their Srinagar headquarters, said he was cautiously optimistic about the talks. "If you take a right step in the right direction in the very first meeting you reach your goal. If anything goes wrong you probably cannot think of reaching the goal," he said. Bhat said Hurriyat favoured involvement of militants in the talks.

"We would like our boys (militants) also to be associated with the process," said Bhat. "For that we will need to undertake a visit to Pakistan. We will take it up with the government of India (too)." Similar pleas have been spurned by India in the past. Hardliners, who in September expressed no confidence in the moderate leadership of Ansari and named Syed Ali Geelani as their leader, have opposed the talks while a militant group Jamiat-ul-Mujahedin has warned Ansari and his colleagues of a "bad end" if they bow to New Delhi.

On Thursday, the Jihad Council, a group of over a dozen rebel groups active in Kashmir, said the moderate faction had no mandate for talks from the people and the rebels. "It is a lot that has been rejected both by the people and the freedom fighters active in the field," council spokesman Sadaqat Hussain was quoted as saying by a local news agency. "If the talks harm the freedom struggle in any way they (the Ansari-led faction) will be held responsible," said the council, of which the region's dominant group Hizbul Mujahedin is a prominent member. Hizbul claimed responsibility for a car bomb in a Srinagar suburb coinciding with the opening of the Hurriyat meeting. The explosion left a policeman injured.

Bhat said he and his colleagues were not afraid of threats "I don't think I feel frightened. None of us does," he said. "They (militants) occasionally talk in sentiments but as soon as they get to understand the dynamics of the change they will agree with us that the only way available to seek a permanent settlement is (through) dialogue." He said the final settlement has to come through talks involving India, Pakistan and Kashmiris. New Delhi's invitation for the first talks with Kashmiri separatists since a militant uprising began in 1989 followed a breakthrough accord with Pakistan last week to resume peace talks after the arch-rivals nearly went to war over the region in 2002. Kashmir analysts are deeply skeptical about the results from the talks in absence of hardliners who have the backing of rebels and Pakistan. Meanwhile, India's Border Security Force backed by police shot dead a Muslim militant during an early morning encounter on Thursday in Srinagar, the Kashmiri summer capital, BSF spokesman Tirtha Acharya told AFP. More than 40,000 people have died in Kashmir since the eruption of anti-Indian insurgency in the region 14 years ago. Separatists put the toll between 80,000 and 100,000.

Kosovo

An ethnic Serb member of Kosovo's police force has been arrested on suspicion of committing war crimes in the volatile province in 1999, his lawyer told AFP Tuesday. Dragan Mihajlovic, a member of the multiethnic Kosovo Police Service (KPS) was arrested early Monday in the northern town of Kosovska Mitrovica, said lawyer Ljubomir Pantovic. He is suspected of belonging to a group that allegedly killed three ethnic Albanians and attempted to kill three others in the northern Kosovo village of Studimlje in 1999, Pantovic said. The UN police in the province confirmed a KPS officer had been arrested but gave no further details on probable charges. "We can confirm an officer has been arrested on suspicion of a criminal offence, but the investigation is still ongoing," said Derek Chappell, spokesman for the UN police in Kosovo.

An international judge has ordered Mihajlovic to be held in detention for 30 days, his lawyer said. The KPS numbers some 6,000 members, mostly ethnic Albanians. The force is supervised by the UN mission that runs the province and decides on most major issues including security. Albanian-dominated Kosovo came under UN and NATO control in June 1999 after the alliance bombed Yugoslavia for 78 days in a bid to end Serb forces brutal crackdown on separatist Albanians.

Newly-appointed NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer pledged Friday that alliance peacekeepers would remain committed in Kosovo, on his first official visit to the UN-administered Serbian province. "I have come here on one of my first days in office to show the continued commitment of NATO to Kosovo," Scheffer said after meeting the top commander of NATO's Kosovo force, known as KFOR, Lieutenant General Holger Kammerhoff. "We think (KFOR) has played an important role, and it will still have to play an important role in the run-up to the important events which are going to take place in Kosovo," he said. During his brief visit, the Atlantic alliance's chief was also to meet with the chief UN diplomat, Harri Holkeri, the province's president, Ibrahim Rugova, and prime minister Bajram Rexhepi.

Close to 20,000 troops serve in Kosovo on NATO's largest mission, and are in charge of peace and security. The number has dropped by more than half from the 50,000 troops initially deployed in 1999. NATO is expected to further reduce the number of troops serving in Kosovo and neighbouring Bosnia. Scheffer said however there would not be great reductions in the number of troops on the ground. "If I speak about continued commitment, you may rest assured that we will not see, let's say, considerable changes in the structure. It might vary, but we will not see considerable changes and not a considerable downsizing," he said.

Scheffer was named head of the alliance at the end of last year and took over the helm of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation on January 5. The new NATO chief, who is Dutch, also visited the town of Obilic, just west of Kosovo's main city Pristina, the site of a brutal murder last year of three elderly Serbs, which was blamed on ethnic Albanians. More than four years after NATO and the United Nations took over control of the province after a bombing campaign that forced Belgrade to end its anti-Albanian crackdown, ethnic tensions between the majority Albanians and minority Serbs are still high, although the number of serious crimes has dropped.

Scheffer called upon all communities in the province to work together to achieve a string of UN-set benchmarks aimed at improving living conditions. If those benchmarks are met, talks on Kosovo's final status could be organised by the mid-2005. "The communities and the authorities have to play their role," Scheffer said at a press conference after meeting Holkeri. "They must condemn violence. There are still too many mindless incidents. They should fight organised crime and they should put in place the conditions for the safe return of refugees and displaced persons. "Despite the progress which has been made... there's a lot to be wished here still," Scheffer said.

Liberia

Tension over the leadership of Liberia's largest rebel group has sparked unrest in the provincial capitals under its control, provoking fears of further instability in the war-battered west African state. The UN refugee agency UNHCR told AFP on Tuesday that reports ethnic Mandingo members of Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) had been killed in the capital Monrovia triggered weekend gunbattles in the northeastern town of Gbarnga. Clashes in the LURD headquarters town of Tubmanburg were also reported, leaving two fighters and three civilians dead. Fighting in the northern stronghold Voinjama killed one civilian and sent thousands fleeing over the border into Guinea, a LURD source told AFP. It was the 1999 uprising by LURD against former president Charles Taylor's regime that sparked the second of Liberia's back-to-back civil wars since 1989.

With some 7,000 fighters, LURD controlled some four-fifths of the country until mid-August, when Taylor accepted exile in Nigeria. His flight paved the way for peace and a power-sharing pact that gave the rebels, the former government and the political opposition seats in a transitional government. A group calling itself LURD's "military high command" on Thursday announced that they had replaced chairman Sekou Damate Conneh with his estranged wife Aisha Keita Conneh, after accusing him of trading LURD's posts in the transitional government for money. LURD founder George Dweh, current speaker of the transitional legislature, insisted Sunday that only LURD's national executive council could remove the chairman.

LURD, dominated by the Mandingo ethnic group of Conneh and several other senior commanders, is a fractious band wracked with internal divisions that have mostly followed ethnic lines. But Dweh and other LURD leaders insist that the infighting will have little impact on the peace process and UN-backed disarmament campaign already underway. "There is no more war in Liberia," General Mohamed Keita, Conneh's brother-in-law and among those who signed the resolution for his ouster, told AFP. "All accords will be fully respected." International donors, lenders and humanitarian agencies are to meet February 3-4 in New York to commit funds for a campaign to rebuild the country after wars that killed some 300,000 and made refugees of one in five of Liberia's 3.3 million people.

Philippines

Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is expected to discuss anti-terror cooperation with Philippine President Gloria Arroyo in his first trip here since assuming power last year, an official said Monday. Upcoming peace talks between Manila and the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) being brokered by Malaysia are also expected to top the agenda of the talks, presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye said.

Abdullah and Arroyo would discuss "security concerns of our two countries because we are both involved in the fight against terrorism," Bunye said. Abdullah is to scheduled to arrive in Manila late Monday and hold talks with Arroyo Tuesday before departing. Malaysia has been hosting and mediating peace talks between Manila and the MILF, a Muslim rebel group that has been fighting for more than two decades to set up an Islamic state in the southern third of the largely-Christian Philippines. Both countries are also struggling to deal with the threat of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), an Islamic group believed to be the local chapter of the al-Qaeda terror network.

Serbia & Montenegro

Serbia's stability depends on next government upholding democratic goals, foreign minister says

Serbia's stability depends on its next government adopting clear, democratic policies to counter extremists' gains in last month's parliamentary elections, the foreign minister said Thursday. That is why ongoing talks among pro-Western, centrist and moderately nationalist parties on how to form a Cabinet are crucial, Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic told The Associated Press in an interview.

"If we can agree on a wide democratic program that all will stick to, then the chances for Serbia to go forward will increase," Svilanovic said. His comments came after Serbia's leading moderate nationalist, former president Vojislav Kostunica, this week proposed a minority government as a way out of a deadlock after the Dec. 28 elections produced no clear winner. The extremist Serbian Radical Party came out of the vote the strongest in parliament, but without enough seats to govern alone.

Since the elections, four parties that trailed the Radicals have engaged in talks on joining forces to sideline the extremists. Only by uniting can these four wield a parliamentary majority. Kostunica, who was part of the coalition that ousted Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in 2000 but later fell apart, is a bitter rival of the Democratic Party that led the government in the past three years.

Seeing himself as Serbia's next prime minister, Kostunica refuses to accept the Democrats in the Cabinet. Instead, he proposed a minority government of his own and the two other parties. Such a government still would depend on the Democrats' support in parliament. The Democrats - who suffered the most after last March's assassination of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic - have conditioned their support on Kostunica's minority government carrying on the pro-Western reforms that Djindjic started.

"It's essential (that) our foreign policy goals of joining the European Union not change," Svilanovic said. "The West, Western investors, have to see stability here in order to be confident about us." Svilanovic, who is allied with the Democrats, stands to lose his job as foreign minister, since Kostunica likely will appoint his own people to key posts. Before backing a minority government, the Democrats must assure there are no "hidden agendas" among members of a Cabinet led by Kostunica, Svilanovic said.

The newly elected parliament will convene on Jan. 27. Svilanovic conceded that the elections - in which the Democrats won only 37 of 250 parliament seats - reflect "disaffection with the outgoing government ... that failed to live up to people's expectations of how much their lives should improve" after Milosevic. "We'll have a difficult time ahead, but we must have a new government," Svilanovic said.

Serbia's new parliament, elected last month, will meet for its first session on January 27 to confirm the appointments of 250 new deputies, outgoing assembly speaker Natasa Micic said on Friday. The session will also see the election of a new parliamentary speaker and deputy speaker, Tanjug news agency quoted Micic as saying. The new speaker will also automatically be acting president of Serbia -- as three rounds of presidential elections in Serbia have so far failed to produce a victor because turnout has been too low to meet the required threshold.

The speaker must also propose a prime minister. Six political parties and coalitions will be represented in the new assembly. The ultranationalist Serbian Radical party (SRS) will be the strongest group, with 82 seats. Former Yugoslav president Vojislav Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia comes second with 53 seats. Three other reformist parties -- the Democratic Party of late prime minister Zoran Djindjic, the liberal G17 Plus and a conservative coalition called the Serbian Renewal Movement -- have 37, 34 and 22 seats respectively.

The Socialist party of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, who is on trial before the United Nations war crimes tribunal, has 22 seats. But none of the six parties scored enough votes in the election to form a majority government on its own, and even together the Serbian Radical Party and the Socialist Party do not have enough seats. The four pro-European forces -- the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), the G17 Plus, the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO-NS) and the Democratic Party (DS) -- held talks on forming a new government late on Friday.

The talks came after Kostunica proposed the creation of a minority government involving the G17 Plus, the SPO-NS and the DSS but with the support in parliament of the DS. After the talks, Kostunica expressed hope that the new government would be formed in January, at around the date of parliament's inaugural session. "The talks were positive and encouraging. They focused on ways of cooperating between the parties at all levels," he said. He added that the talks between the four pro-reformist parties would continue "in coming days".

Miroljub Labus of the G17 Plus said his party was "really satisfied with this constructive meeting", describing it as a "positive step forward". The strong showing by the hardline nationalists in the election resulted from divisions among pro-European reformers and the economic hardship that has marred Serbia's slow transition. The Serbian Radical party stood on a populist programme rejecting liberal economic and political reforms that appealed to Serbia's underclass -- workers who have lost their jobs and opponents of unconditional cooperation with the West, as advocated by the pro-European bloc. The reformers' support for cooperation with the UN war crimes tribunal prosecuting war crimes suspects dating from the 1990s wars in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo is also extremely unpopular in Serbia.

Somalia

The authorities in the self-declared republic of Somaliland have warned neighbouring Puntland to "stop playing with fire" and withdraw its forces from the disputed region of Sool, a senior Somaliland official told IRIN on Wednesday. Tension has been rising between the two sides ever since forces of the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland took total control of the Sool regional capital, Las Anod, late last month.

Abdillahi Muhammad Du'ale, the Somaliland information minister, told IRIN on Tuesday that Somaliland had been patient and had igno