Pristina, Serbia - The international community's military and civilian leaders in Kosovo said on Sunday that the security situation was stabilising and some Serbs were beginning to return to homes they had fled.
"The question of the Serb population in Kosovo now is not an easy one. They do feel under great pressure, some of them," British Lieutenant-General Sir Mike Jackson, who heads the Nato-led KFOR peacekeeping force, told reporters.
"The frequency of security incidents continues to go down, the serious crime rate continues to go down."
Only about 20 000 to 30 000 Serbs and other minorities are thought to remain in Kosovo, which has an ethnic Albanian majority, compared to about 200 000 in March.
Most left during the three-month Nato bombing campaign against Yugoslavia or in the first 10 days of KFOR's arrival in Kosovo.
In Belgrade, a Serbian opposition leader urged KFOR commanders to come up with a way of protecting Serbs in the province within 10 days or hand in their resignations.
The strongly worded statement by Vladan Batic, coordinator of Serbia's pro-Western Alliance for Change, was part of a sudden chorus of condemnation of the treatment of Serbs in Kosovo from the government and opposition alike.
"Instead of protecting Serbs, they glorify leaders of the KLA (the separatist ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army) and turn them into legends," a statement from Batic's Christian Democratic Party said.
Almost a million ethnic Albanians fled Kosovo before the replacement of Yugoslav security forces by NATO troops in June made most feel safe enough to go back.
KFOR's Jackson said on Sunday he hoped members of Kosovo's Serb minority would return to the province.
"I do hope and believe that the security situation is stabilising and that those members of the Serb population of Kosovo who have felt frightened may begin to feel that their place really is here," Jackson said.
"I do not believe that we are seeing a big exodus now. And indeed we are seeing, continually, small numbers of Kosovo Serbs returning to Kosovo."
Bernard Kouchner, head of the UN administration in the province, said the number of Serbs remaining in Kosovo at this time was actually higher than originally expected and he vowed to protect both those who stayed and those who return.
He reacted with impatience on Sunday to media queries about the pace of improvement in the security situation.
"When (ethnic hatred) comes from so long - months of massacres, years of oppression, centuries of history - how could you say whether this (UN-induced changes) is slow or not?, Kouchner said.
"This is impossible. How can you change the mentality of the people in such a short time? It's childish to believe that it could have been done. We have to build an entire Kosovo from nothing and we have been here only two months..."
- Reuters