§ Mrs. GillanTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what the Government's policy is on the Kosovo Serbs' proposal regarding establishment of(a) Serb enclaves within Kosovo, (b) Serb defence forces and (c) a Serb police force. [110493]
§ Mr. Vaz(a) We do not support ethnically pure enclaves. We want to preserve a multi-ethnic Kosovo. The protection of minorities in Kosovo is a major priority for the Kosovo force (KFOR). 50 per cent. of KFOR manpower is involved in the protection of minorities.
(b) We are opposed to the creation of any defence forces in Kosovo. KFOR has sole responsibility for security in Kosovo.
(c) The Kosovo Police Service is a multi-ethnic force. Kosovo Serbs were among the first graduates of the force.
§ Mr. LilleyTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what estimate he has made of the number of people killed in Yugoslavia as a result of the conflict over Kosovo(a) by NATO forces and the KLA and (b) by Yugoslav forces, since the NATO action began on 22 March 1999. [109409]
§ Mr. VazNATO has no reliable figures for the number of casualties arising from the campaign in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. We would be wary of relying on figures whose source was the authorities in Belgrade.
We estimate that around 10,000 Kosovo Albanians, many of them civilians, were killed by Yugoslav forces between June 1998 and June 1999. Most of these deaths 839W occurred in the period between March and June 1999. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) continues to work, with our support, to calculate the full scale of the death toll arising from Serb repression and violence in Kosovo.