KOSOVO: KLA NOT MET NATOS DISARM DEADLINE

(21 Aug 1999) Natural Sound Kosovo Liberation Army fighters say they have met a NATO deadline to partially disarm. They worked with NATO-led peacekeepers on Friday to sort through the stacks of rifles, grenades and other weapons they handed over. This former Yugoslav army barracks is being closely guarded. It is full of high-powered weapons which the Kosovo Liberation Army (K-L-A) has given over to K-FOR. Guns line the walls of two rooms at the regional collection point in northern Kosovo. The K-L-A has handed them over as part of an agreement with NATO that the rebel fighters will disarm by stages. The K-L-A's military commander, General Agim Ceku, said on Friday that his group had met one of the deadlines to disarm. By midnight on Friday, they were supposed to have turned in 60 percent of the arms they held during the conflict with the Serbs. General Agim Ceku said they met that deadline on Thursday night. NATO officials said they must inventory weapons before they can confirm Ceku's claim. Nearly two dozen British and K-L-A soldiers spent Friday tagging and logging weapons that had been turned in by four former rebel brigades. Rows of Yugoslav and Russian-made semiautomatic and single-shot rifles were laid out for show. An agreement reached earlier this year calls for total K-L-A disarmament by September 19. Disarming the former rebels is a major step toward restoring order and ending reprisal attacks by ethnic Albanians against Kosovo's dwindling Serb population. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...