RAMBOUILLET, France -- Foreign mediators accused Serbs on Friday of preventing progress at the Kosovo peace talks and denied Serb accusations of blocking direct meetings between the two sides.
The chief mediator, U.S. envoy Christopher Hill, described the six days of negotiations so far between the Serbs and ethnic Albanians as "a very difficult process.""We are going to have to make a lot of progress in the days ahead," he said.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was to come to the 14th-century chateau this weekend, and Hill said her intent was to assess whether enough progress had been made to extend negotiations into a second week.
The NATO allies are moving ahead with plans for a peacekeeping force in Kosovo in the event the two sides agree on a settlement. A Pentagon official said Friday that about 2,200 Marines could be sent in the first stage.
President Clinton plans Saturday to announce that the United States is prepared to contribute ground troops to a NATO peacekeeping force if a political settlement is reached, a senior administration official said Friday night, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Clinton will discuss his plans in his Saturday radio address, the official said.
But Hill and the other two mediators, Wolfgang Petritsch of the European Union and Boris Mayorsky of Russia, said deep divisions between the Serbs and Kosovo Albanians persist on almost all important issues.
The warring parties came to the peace talks only under the threat of a NATO bombing campaign in the province in southern Serbia, the main Yugoslav republic. Kosovo's population is 90 percent ethnic Albanian.
Earlier Friday in Paris, Serbian President Milan Milutinovic accused mediators of "playing games" and preventing the two delegations from meeting despite repeated Serb demands for direct talks.
Milutinovic also continued to insist that the ethnic Albanian delegation sign a pledge that Kosovo remain part of Yugoslavia.