NATO Extends Arms Deadline for Serbs

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization granted a Serbian request to extend a deadline for returning weapons, and postponed threatened house searches by peacekeepers and arrests of those who fail to comply in Kosovo. NATO troops had threatened to search the Serbian neighborhood in Orahovac and collect unauthorized weapons before Dutch forces overseeing the Kosovo town are replaced by Russian peacekeepers. The hand-over to the Russians, set for this week, has drawn protests from ethnic Albanian residents, who accuse them of favoring their fellow Slavic Serbs. Many Serbs believe that only the Russians can protect them from reprisal attacks by ethnic Albanians in the province.