Albania has put troops on high alert in northern regions bordering Yugoslavia because of the critical situation in Serbia's volatile Kosovo province, the Defence Ministry in Tirana said yesterday.
A spokesman said that Albania, which has close ties with the two million ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, had detected an increase in the numbers of Serbian troops on the Yugoslav side of the frontier.
Meanwhile, thousands rallied in Tirana yesterday to hear President Rexhep Meidani denounce Serbia's "brutal violence" against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. Leaders of government and opposition parties, normally bitter enemies, stood together on the same platform in Skanderbeg Square in front of a sea of Albanian flags and banners. "Today, in Skanderbeg square and all over the country, the flags of the parties have disappeared and the national flag has arisen," Mr Meidani said.
When some in the crowd chanted "We want weapons", Mr Meidani responded: "The call that we make to the Kosovo people is to restrain themselves. We do not want war."
He urged international institutions to intervene effectively in Kosovo to prevent further violence against "defenceless people".
Yugoslavia closed its borders with Albania a year ago amid violent unrest in Albania following the collapse of fraudulent investment schemes, but smugglers have continued to cross the wild, mountainous border areas. Parts of northern Albania are effectively lawless, with armed gangs roaming the area and roads unsafe to travel at night.
Russia yesterday damaged efforts by major world powers to send a tough warning to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic that his bloody crackdown in Kosovo must stop. Western governments have condemned the Serbian police offensive and voiced alarm at the risk of a new conflict spreading across the southern Balkans.
The British Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, said he expected foreign ministers of the six-nation Contact Group to send a tough-minded message to Mr Milosevic on "the need for an immediate end to repressive action" when they meet in London on Monday.
But Russia, the big power most sympathetic to the Serbs, said it would not tolerate what it called threats by Western states to intervene directly or impose new sanctions on Belgrade - a clear reference to statements by the United States and Britain.
Moscow, calling for restraint on both sides, blamed "terrorist acts carried out by the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)". It said the Foreign Minister, Mr Yevgeny Primakov, would not attend the London talks but was sending his deputy.
Bonn revealed yesterday that the German Foreign Minister, Mr Klaus Kinkel had written to the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, calling for an emergency Security Council debate on Kosovo.
Washington has responded to the Kosovo crisis by rescinding some minor economic concessions it gave Mr Milosevic last week to reward his co-operative behaviour in Bosnia and by reviving a threat of military action made by President George Bush in 1992.
Officials and diplomats in Tirana believe Albania, Europe's poorest country, is unlikely ever to intervene militarily in Kosovo, lacking both the resources and the will to do so.
However, at yesterday's Tirana rally Mr Berisha called on Albanians to defend the nation "at any price". Mr Milosevic, was, he said, the "Saddam of the Balkans", repeating words used by the Albanian government.
In Vienna, more than 1,000 Albanians gathered in a similar demonstration. Participants said they intended to sign a petition to hand in to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) to demand foreign intervention. And at least 20,000 Macedonian Albanians demonstrated in Skopje and demanded international intervention to stop the fighting. In Ankara, the Turkish Prime Minister, Mr Mesut Yilmaz, warned that Turkey could not remain indifferent to the conflict in Kosovo.