-Caveat Lector-
>From Int'l Herald Tribune
""In talks with Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov of
Russia, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright insisted
recently that every Serb soldier and policeman has to
leave the rebellious province.""
Paris, Saturday, May 8, 1999
Formula to Keep Peace: Troubling Ambiguities
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-----------------
By Barton Gellman and Steven Mufson Washington Post
Service
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-----------------
WASHINGTON - The United States and its North Atlantic
Treaty Organization allies realized a major ambition
with Russia's consent to a formula to end the war in
Kosovo. But it remains to be established whether the
formula is compatible with NATO's war aims against the
government in Belgrade.
Russia and the alliance's main powers bridged
fundamental disagreement with ambiguity. U.S.
officials stressed that the joint statement by the
Group of Seven nations and Russia was ''consistent
with'' the alliance's core demands for the removal of
Yugoslav troops in Kosovo Province and their
replacement with a well-armed force led by NATO. But
on its face, the agreement is equally consistent with
abandonment or softening of both demands.
Whether the deal becomes a reversal or a triumph for
NATO - and, conversely, for Russia - will not be
decided until events give meaning to the ''general
principles'' it sets out. Major points of silence
include whether all of Belgrade's troops have to leave
Kosovo or only some, who will decide the orders and
armaments of the foreign troops intended to become
Kosovo's effective governors and what role will be
played by the United Nations Security Council.
On central features of Kosovo's political and military
landscape that NATO insisted until now were not
negotiable, the text of Thursday's statement calls for
endorsement, adoption or decision by the Security
Council, where Russia and China hold vetoes.
Much of the meaning of the agreement hangs on the
interpretation of words such as ''effective'' - to
describe the ''civil and security presences'' meant to
lay down the law in Kosovo - and the absence of words
like ''all'' -- to describe the Yugoslav forces
required to withdraw. On this fundamental question -
who will rule Kosovo - the text specifies neither
which troops have to leave Kosovo nor which troops
will come in to keep the peace.
The United States and its allies have used ambiguity
to their advantage before, obtaining Security Council,
and therefore Russian, assent to broad language that
they later deemed adequate to authorize the war in
Kosovo and, before that, punitive expeditions against
Iraq.
But if they do hold firm on their substantive demands,
as U.S. and allied officials said they would, the
central question remains what it has been for more
than a month: Whether NATO will lose its taste for
bombing before its demands are accepted, in turn, by
Moscow and then Belgrade.
Because Russia has been Yugoslavia's major patron,
some U.S. and allied officials portrayed Thursday's
statement by the Group of Seven leading Western
industrialized countries plus Russia as the harbinger
of an important new lever against President Slobodan
Milosevic of Yugoslavia.
''It definitely will help in pressuring Milosevic,''
said a high-ranking White House official. ''I also
think it's conceivable that as we move forward with
this, not only can they pressure him more but it's
easier for Milosevic to say yes to the G-8 than to
NATO.''
Other policymakers put more emphasis on Washington's
determination to prevent collapse of pro-Western
forces on Russia's political scene, where analysts
foresee gains by angry nationalists in the election of
the State Duma, Russia's legislature, in December.
Productive negotiations with Viktor Chernomyrdin, the
Russian special envoy to the Balkans and former prime
minister, mark much improvement over Moscow's threats
last month to send an aircraft carrier to the Adriatic
Sea and to pull its peacekeeping troops out of Bosnia.
''No one wanted to see progress made in U.S.-Russian
relations fall apart because of Milosevic's
irresponsible actions,'' said an American official,
describing the view of President Bill Clinton and
President Boris Yeltsin. ''There is much more at stake
in the U.S.-Russia relationship.''
There was an internal alliance motive as well, since
many of the European allies insisted during the recent
NATO summit conference in Washington that Moscow's
participation in Kosovo must be an overriding
priority. As a U.S. official put it, ''You need to
keep enough diplomacy alive so that the allies and
Russians feel you're serious that you're trying to get
a good deal, and not lose your soul in the process.''
In talks with Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov of Russia,
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright insisted
recently that every Serb soldier and policeman has to
leave the rebellious province.
Other U.S. and allied officials said, as a British
diplomat put it, that only ''enough of them are going
to have to go to persuade the refugees it is safe to
return.'' A U.S. policymaker said, ''You might allow
some Serb presence as a symbol of Serb sovereignty.''
A<>E<>R
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