President Sali Berisha no relation United Kingdom
It is widely believed that the KLA received financial and material support from the Kosovo Albanian diaspora. In early 1997, Albania collapsed into chaos following the fall of President Sali Berisha. Albanian Armed Forces stockpiles were looted with impunity by criminal gangs, with much of the hardware ending up in western Kosovo and boosting the growing KLA arsenal. Bujar Bukoshi, shadow Prime Minister in exile (in Zürich, Switzerland), created a group called FARK (Armed Forces of the Republic of Kosova), which was reported to have been disbanded and absorbed by the KLA in 1998. The Yugoslav government considered the KLA to be "terrorists" and "insurgents" who indiscriminately attacked police and civilians, while most Albanians saw the KLA as "freedom fighters".
In 1998, the US State Department listed the KLA as a terrorist organisation, and in 1999 the US Senate Republican Policy Committee expressed its troubles with the "effective alliance" of the Democratic Clinton administration with the KLA due to "numerous reports from reputable unofficial sources". In 2004, John Pilger claimed that for six years prior to 1998, the KLA had been regarded by the US as a terrorist group. Early in 1998, US envoy Robert Gelbard referred to the KLA as terrorists; responding to criticism, he later clarified to the House Committee on International Relations that "while it has committed 'terrorist acts,' it has 'not been classified legally by the U.S. Government as a terrorist organization.'" In June 1998, he held talks with two men who claimed they were political leaders of the KLA. In 2000, a BBC documentary called Moral Combat – Nato at War showed how the United States now sought a relationship with the group. While the US officially described the KLA as terrorists, author Alastair MacKenzie claims the KLA received training by the Americans' closest NATO-ally, the United Kingdom, since 1998 in a training camp in the mountains above the northern Albanian town of Bajram Curri.Meanwhile, the US held an "outer wall of sanctions" on Yugoslavia which had been tied to a series of issues, including Kosovo. These were maintained despite the agreement at Dayton to end all sanctions. The Clinton administration claimed that the agreement bound Yugoslavia to hold discussions with Rugova over Kosovo.
The crisis escalated in December 1997 at the Peace Implementation Council meeting in Bonn, where the international community (as defined in the Dayton Agreement) agreed to give the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina sweeping powers, including the right to dismiss elected leaders. At the same time, Western diplomats insisted that Kosovo be discussed, and that Yugoslavia be responsive to Albanian demands there. The delegation from Yugoslavia stormed out of the meetings in protest. This was followed by the return of the Contact Group that oversaw the last phases of the Bosnian conflict and declarations from European powers demanding that Yugoslavia solve the problem in Kosovo.
no relation