Balkan nations agree on stricter border controls

OHRID, Macedonia -- Balkan leaders agreed Friday to tighten border security in a crackdown on organized crime and rampant trafficking in drugs, weapons and people.

The leaders -- closing a two-day meeting at Lake Ohrid, which divides southern Macedonia and Albania -- put forward an ambitious plan to more strictly control 3,100 miles of frontiers created by the breakup of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Organized by NATO, the European Union and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the conference decided to step up border surveillance and improve border guard training in a broader effort to catch smugglers and seize contraband.

The leaders -- including top officials from Serbia and Montenegro, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria and U.N. administrators running the southern Serbian province of Kosovo -- also pledged to fight illegal migration and human trafficking.

Participants said short-term measures would be implemented by the end of 2004, and they thanked EU countries that have earmarked $125 million to improve Balkans border control.

"The ultimate goal is to do two things at the same time -- to make the borders more open for legal trade while closing them for any illegal activities," said Reinhard Priebe, and EU official overseeing the western Balkans.

The leaders also agreed to share information and create joint databases on criminal enterprises active in the region.

Macedonia remains tense after an ethnic Albanian insurgency in 2001. Bordering Macedonia to the north is Kosovo, which convulsed into fighting in 1998-99 between ethnic Albanian rebels and forces of Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president now on trial for war crimes.

Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic was assassinated in March, allegedly by organized crime bosses linked to Milosevic.