Belgrade, September 11 (Beta) - The Serb Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic declared that Kosovo was affected by humanitarian catastrophe and that 2,000 people had been killed or missing since the arrival of the NATO in the province.

Djindjic said in his interview for BBC that Kosovo was going through the worst ethnic cleansing in the past 300 years. He observed that it was the consequence of the wrong politics on both sides.

- NATO intervention in Kosovo was a bad decision based on glaringly miscalculated solutions to the problem and the situation in Kosovo is now worse than it has been for years - Djindjic said.

Turning to Macedonia, Djindjic said that Macedonia was rather unstable on account of the unresolved Albanian question and that the Macedonian crisis resulted from the failure to solve the problems of Kosovo.

He condemned the Albanian side in Macedonian conflict for starting war allegedly because they had stumbled upon obstacles when trying to proclaim Albanian the official language. He added that Macedonian Albanians were represented in the government through their parties sitting on it.

Djindjic noted that NATO was only relieving consequences in Macedonia instead of addressing the causes, adding that NATO had the responsibility to control the armed troops in Kosovo and prevent the crisis from spreading into southern Serbia and Macedonia

- If the project of forming an ethnic state succeeds, if Kosovo becomes an ethnic Albanian state, perchance including part of Macedonia, repercussions will be felt in Bosnia and, possibly, in Serbia too. Other ethnic groups will say: OK, that's exactly what we're after; we should therefore try and make an ethnic state to ourselves. That is why Serbia wants a multiethnic society integrated in Europe - Djindjic said.

Milutinovic's position not so important

Asked about the extradition of Serbian President Milan Milutinovic, who is also one of the Hague indictees, Djindjic said that the international community insisted on the cooperation with the tribunal, but that "at the moment, they are not too concentrated on individual cases." "They insist on cooperation, and cooperation entails transfer of indictees, but not of all at the same time. Milosevic was a special case, i.e. other indictees are not so important, although Milutinovic is very important." Concerning a comment made by the press that by such an attitude he gave an impression that he is willing to cooperate only when he feels like it, which goes against principle, Djindjic replied: "Nobody pressured us to deliver Milosevic to the Hague…But we were pressured to give a concrete example of cooperation with the tribunal." Asked what is the field of cooperation between a prime minister and president of Serbia, Djindjic answered: "Milutinovic's position is not so important. He just signs laws." Asked whether he was ashamed of the fact that Milutinovic is at the head of the state, Djindjic said: " I don't care, I have other problems."

Asked about Milosevic's extradition to the Hague, Djindjic reiterated, "that was a lesser than two evils."

Asked why he didn't consult federal authorities on that matter, Djindjic said that it had to be so. Replying to journalists' comment that Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica was not informed about Milosevic's extradition, Djindjic said, "I am sorry, but that's his problem."

"My duty was to try to protect the country, not because of my personal position, but because it was clear that if we don't cooperate with the Hague we don't stand a chance to continue the process of integration and fulfill the promise that this country would be normal again," the Serbian prime minister explained.

Commenting on the relations between the governments of Serbia and Republic of Srpska, Djindjic said:

"We have regular relations with Republic of Srpska, similar to those we have with Bulgaria and Hungary, nothing special."