BELGRADE -- Ethnic Albanian UCPMB guerrillas Monday "pledged" to release soon six Serbs taken hostage by guerrillas on Sunday, Beta news agency reported, quoting local Albanian sources in Bujanovac.

Local Albanian guerrilla commander Sefqet Musliu issued the pledge in a statement to an officer of KFOR, the NATO-led international peacekeeping force deployed in Kosovo.

Yugoslav Interior Minister Zoran Zivkovic, who is visiting the area, said KFOR officials had also promised to secure the freedom of the six who were abducted Sunday in the demilitarized zone bordering Kosovo. KFOR was said to be mediating in the dispute.

The Albanian UCPMB guerrillas are demanding the release of their compatriots from Serbian prisons, the Beta news agency reported.

Local Serb sources said the six men were taken on the road linking Presevo in southern Serbia and Gnjilane in eastern Kosovo.

The sources said eyewitnesses reported the abduction on the stretch of road between the territory controlled by Serbian police and Kosovo's administrative border, controlled by KFOR.

The report said the guerrillas gave Belgrade three days to release Albanians taken from Kosovo last year to prisons in Serbia.

Many of those prisoners still await trial more than 18 months since the Yugoslav Army and Serbian police withdrew from Kosovo to allow in peacekeepers.

The demilitarized zone, where only a limited local police presence is allowed, was established in June 1999 for UN security. (DPA)