Word: buffer
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
NATO officials concede that the problem is partly of their own making. A three-mile-wide buffer zone along the Kosovo border, created by NATO to keep Serbian forces at bay, has become the perfect working environment for Albanian rebels. NATO's new plan allows for lightly armed Serbian troops to patrol a section of the zone near Macedonia in order to disrupt rebel incursions. Meanwhile, in Kosovo, U.S. troops have stepped up their patrols...
...Presevo Valley NATO ordered a "phased and conditioned" narrowing of the 5-km-wide buffer zone between Serbia and Kosovo in an attempt to flush out Albanian extremists operating there. In a sharp rebuke to Albanian rebels, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said: "This is not the time to start a new conflict in Europe." Details of the narrowing have yet to be worked out, but Serb troops would have to withdraw first from the frontline. Established after the nato bombing of 1999 as a no-go area for Serbian troops and intended to keep nato and Serbian forces...
...former KLA elements who are bent on destabilizing Serbia and Macedonia. Not only that, NATO has actually enlisted the help of the same Yugoslav army against which it fought in Kosovo. To the consternation of Kosovo's Albanian leaders, NATO this week asked Belgrade to send troops into the buffer zone inside Serbia established as part of the cease-fire agreement that ended the war in Kosovo. The symbolic significance of that decision cannot be understated: It's a clear a message to the region's Albanian nationalists that NATO plans to respond aggressively to any further attempts to redraw...
...further. That, and President George W. Bush's campaign promise to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from the Balkans, may have prompted Albanian nationalists across the region to step up their campaign for a Greater Albania, by launching new insurgencies in Serbia's Presevo Valley (which falls in a demilitarized buffer zone adjacent to Kosovo) and in northern Macedonia. But in the absence of Serb abuse and ethnic cleansing, NATO has shown little tolerance for the new Albanian adventurism...
...sure if the panic will spread beyond Turkey's borders, but within the country the economic situation threatens the political stability of a NATO member that for the U.S. is a valuable buffer against fundamentalist Islamism in the region. Not to mention another black eye for the U.S.-dominated International Monetary Fund, which bailed out Turkey last year and seems in danger of losing its investment. TIME stringer Andrew Finkel, who works out of Istanbul, comments on the developments...