WASHINGTON, Feb 20: War clouds loomed large over the Balkans today with NATO warplanes bracing for an aerial blitz on Yugoslavia even as negotiations continued beyond the deadline, which ended today, for an accord on Kosovo peace talks.An hour after the 1630 hrs (IST) deadline passed, US State Department spokesman James Rubin told reporters, "these intensive discussions are continuing . work is still going on."Rubin said US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and her colleagues from the six-nation Contact Group in charge of Balkan diplomacy were talking with both Serbian President Milan Milutinovic and the Kosovo Albanian delegation.Earlier the US and France had warned Belgrade to accept a NATO-proposed Kosovo peace deal or face strikes and sanctions."We stand united in our determination to use force if Serbia fails to meet its previous commitment to withdraw forces from Kosovo and if it fails to accept the peace agreement," said US President Bill Clinton at a news conference here with FrenchPresident Jacques Chirac yesterday.NATO has proposed Yugoslavia to accept its solution of autonomy for Kosovo for three years and let it monitor peace there.But Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who snubbed chief mediator American Chris Hill yesterday by refusing to meet him, told a visiting Cypriot delegation that "we will not give up Kosovo, even if we are bombed."US President Bill Clinton said ``we will see how it (autonomy for Kosovo) goes.both sides have responsibilities, I believe, to acknowledge that this is a deal for the next three years during which time they will resolve long-term permanent questions."Clinton has also spoken with British Prime Minister Tony Blair on phone about the deadline.Referring to Russian president Boris Yeltsin's opposition to strikes, Clinton said the only way to preserve Kosovo as a part of Serbia was by accepting the NATO solution. Meanwhile, international observers in Serbia reported heightened military movements today and at least one heavyexchange of fire between security forces and rebels. The monitors said most of the movement, which included convoys of troops, tanks and armoured personnel carriers, appeared to be symbolic rather than tactical".The United States' Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission (KDOM) reported as potentially more significant "unusually heavy concentrations of (Yugoslav army) armour and heavy artillery deployed in that sector of Serbia just North of Kosovo". KDOM, in its report for Friday, said those forces "seem to be poised along a road leading directly to Podujevo".An hour of stiff fighting erupted just outside Podujevo, which is about 32 km North of Kosovo's capital Pristina this morning, international monitors said.Serbian security forces and KLA guerrillas have been skirmishing outside Podujevo since December 11 in regular violation of a ceasefire supposedly agreed in mid-October.
