Ethnic Albanian guerrillas have agreed to free eight Yugoslav soldiers they captured four days ago in Kosovo, the chairman of the OSCE European security organisation said yesterday.
"We have now reached agreement with the KLA on an early release of the detainees," Norwegian Foreign Minister, Mr Knut Vollebaek, who holds the OSCE chairmanship, told a news conference.
Mr Volleabek said he expected all eight soldiers to be freed, but declined to say when. There was no word from the guerrillas, who call themselves the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), who had earlier insisted on a prisoner exchange.
Asked whether the KLA was prepared to free the soldiers unconditionally, Mr Vollebaek said:
"We're talking about a release of prisoners and I said earlier when I've been asked about this that we have requested the KLA for an unconditional release."
A few hours before, the KLA had ruled this out.
"The KLA will stand firm in its insistence that the prisoners be exchanged," Mr Albin Kurti, a KLA spokesman, told a news conference in Pristina.
The KLA guerrillas holding the soldiers in a remote, hilly area told Reuters on Monday they wanted to swap the soldiers for nine KLA guerrillas caught by the army last month for trying to cross into Kosovo from Albania.