WASHINGTON. Aug 7: NATO and European troops will hold exercises in Albania the week after next and in Macedonia in September to warn Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to end military action in Kosovo, the Pentagon said on Thursday, reports Reuters.

’I don't think that he should doubt our ability to move forces in very quickly, whether they be air forces or ground forces." defence department spokesman Ken Bacon said.

The announcement came after Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told Milosevic his offensive against ethnic Albanian guerillas in Kosovo increased the threat of NATO mil-tiary Intervention.

President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair also talked for 30 minutes by telephone on Thursday about ways to halt the Serb offensive.

They discussed ways to increase the pressure on Milose-

vic and ways to put a stop to the offensive that is going on." White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said.

Lockhart said the two leaders agreed that a negotiated solution to the conflict was preferable but that contingency planning for dealing with Kosovo was "intensifying" within the NATO military alliance.

Bacon told reporters Nato contingency plans for possible military intervention in the Kosovo crisis were "largely done" and the patience of the allies was wearing thin over the continuing violence in the south Serbian province. He said the plans could be completed by today.

"NATO will have to decide what triggers its intervention," he said, ri think that every day the violence continues, it brings the NATO community closer to consensus on this."