Yugoslavia's top military commander has threatened to return a military and police Special Kosovo Unit to the UN administered province - with or without agreement from the international community.
The Chief of Staff, Gen Nebojsa Pavkovic, raised the stakes over Kosovo during military exercises by the Kovoso Special Unit at a training ground in southern Serbia yesterday when the military leaders made it clear they aim to return to Kosovo.
Asked if the would return without international agreement, Gen Pavkovic said: "We would not like to break the agreement. So far we have obeyed the agreement completely and we do not want to be the side to start breaking it.
"But there is a limit for everything and also there is a limit to how long Serb people can stand the situation in Kosovo."
He said: "Army and police are supposed to go there and this is only what we ask."
The sabre-rattling exercise marks the latest attempt by the Milosevic government to focus domestic and international attention on Kosovo as elections near.
Earlier, the head of the Yugoslav Third Army, Gen Vladimir Lazarevic, said: "Let today enter the history books as the day of the beginning of the return of the security forces in our state and citizens on the holy Serbian ground," he said.
The withdrawal of Yugoslav forces from Kosovo in June last year was governed by the technical military agreement signed in June last year in Kumanovo and subsequently by UN security council resolution 1,244.
The technical military agreement said that "hundreds not thousands" of "lightly-armed" Yugoslav security personnel can return to Kosovo, although no time was specified.
The Kosovo Special Unit comprises 999 men - literally hundreds but not a thousand. However, the hardware on display yesterday - including tanks - goes way beyond the description "lightly armed".
Kosovo is becoming a major election battleground for both the government of President Slobodan Milosevic and the opposition. Hundreds of thousands of Serbs fled the province after the UN administration and the Kfor peacekeeping force entered.
UN resolution 1,244 says Kfor should provide "a secure environment" but few would describe the environment in Kosovo as secure.
Many Kosovo Serbs are bitter at what they see as their abandonment by the Milosevic government. Many are now refugees in their own country but when they first flooded into Serbia, police on the highways blocked them from entering Belgrade, because of their potential to stir trouble in the capital. Opposition leaders say they believe they will benefit from the vote of disillusioned Kosovo Serbs.
When asked about the NATO exercises in the Adriatic, Gen Pavkovic responded: "NATO is acting according to its own plans but maybe you can take this action as a pressure before federal elections."