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Date sent: Tue, 18 May 1999 11:39:07 -0700
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From: Sid Shniad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: ALLIES DIVIDED ON PATH TO PEACE IN KOSOVO
The Washington Post Tuesday, May 18, 1999; Page A15
ALLIES DIVIDED ON PATH TO PEACE IN KOSOVO
Britain's Cook denies rift between London and Washington;
German and Italian leaders facing intense domestic pressure
By Steven Pearlstein
BRUSSELS, May 17 – Leading European NATO allies
staked out different approaches to ending the war in Kosovo
today, with Britain pushing for a buildup of ground troops to
prepare for an invasion and Germany and Italy advocating a
temporary bombing halt as part of a peace initiative.
British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook plans to press the case
for massing ground troops with Secretary of State Madeleine
K. Albright and other U.S. officials when he visits the United
States later this week, according to allied officials and British
press reports. On the other side of the issue, German
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder launched a hectic peacemaking
effort – shuttling to Finland today to consult with a new
Balkans mediator, Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, then to
Italy to meet with Italian Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema.
Here in Brussels, European Union foreign ministers met with
their Russian counterpart in an effort to work out details of a
resolution on a peace settlement but emerged after three
hours with no significant progress to report. Russian Foreign
Minister Igor Ivanov repeated Moscow's call for a halt to
NATO's air offensive against Yugoslavia but conceded that
Russia will move ahead on the diplomatic front without it.
"This is not going to be an easy thing," Ivanov told reporters.
The NATO allies hope that Russian agreement on a Kosovo
peace proposal will lead to its approval by the U.N. Security
Council and force the Serb-led Yugoslav government to
withdraw its troops from Kosovo, allow an international
peacekeeping force to enter the province and permit hundreds
of thousands forcibly evicted ethnic Albanians to return to
their homes there.
Bad weather over much of Yugoslavia forced NATO to scale
back its air attacks today, although intense fighting was
reported between Yugoslav government security forces and
ethnic Albanian rebels in Kosovo – a province of Serbia,
Yugoslavia's dominant republic. Lt. Gen. Charles Wald,
briefing reporters at the Pentagon, said that NATO warplanes
had hit 51 targets over the last two days, including four
artillery pieces, 19 military vehicles and one tank.
State television in Montenegro – Serbia's disaffected partner
in the Yugoslav federation – reported that a rash of protests
had erupted in some Serbian towns in opposition to
deployment of troops from those towns in Kosovo, the
Reuters news service reported. In one incident, a mob was
said to have lynched a Serbian government official.
The Montenegrin broadcast, which was monitored by the
BBC but could not be immediately verified, said that the
greatest violence occurred in the town of Aleksandrovac in
southern Serbia, Reuters said.
Meanwhile, the flow of Kosovo refugees to neighboring
Albania and Macedonia has slowed to a trickle in recent days
amid unconfirmed reports that Yugoslav and Serbian forces
are blocking their way. The plight of the refugees – and the
grinding pace of the 55-day NATO air war – have conspired
to put the issue of using ground troops back on NATO's
political agenda.
For the last three days, British newspapers have reported
extensively on what they say are behind-the-scenes efforts by
Prime Minister Tony Blair to persuade President Clinton of
the need to begin a troop buildup in the Balkans in
preparation for a possible summer ground offensive. The
Clinton administration has insisted that there are no plans for
using ground troops in Kosovo, except as part of a peace
settlement.
Britain's Cook denied today that there is any rift between
London and Washington on the issue. Even so, Cook
declared that NATO must be prepared to send ground troops
into Kosovo even before the Belgrade government is ready to
accept the terms of any U.N.-backed settlement.
"As a practical matter, we want to be ready to take advantage
of the progress being made in the air campaign," Cook said.
"We're not going to hang around for [Yugoslav President
Slobodan Milosevic] to give us a written invitation."
In Germany and Italy, domestic political considerations are
pushing their governments toward supporting a temporary
halt in the bombing. The German formula, as outlined by
Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, calls for suspension of the
NATO bombing campaign as soon as Belgrade government
forces start pulling out of Kosovo. The Germans say this step
is necessary to encourage Belgrade to withdraw its troops
with the knowledge they will not be "shot in the back" as they
move out of the province. U.S. and other NATO countries
fear that a temporary halt would only encourage Milosevic to
hold out for better terms in a peace settlement.
German Foreign Ministry sources said that the pacifist Greens
party, the junior partner in Schroeder's ruling coalition, is
placing enormous pressure on the government to give the
bombing halt a try – or face the prospect that the government
might fall.
A similar political dilemma faces D'Alema, who also presides
over a shaky left-center coalition that includes Greens and
Communists opposed to NATO's air campaign. On Sunday,
D'Alema floated the idea of a temporary NATO bombing halt
once the U.N. Security Council passes a resolution calling for
the withdrawal of government security forces from Kosovo
and authorizes insertion of an international military contingent
to guarantee the safety of returning refugees. But D'Alema
went on to say that if Milosevic refuses to accept the terms of
the U.N. resolution, NATO would have no choice but to
launch a ground offensive – one to which Italy would
contribute.
The diplomatic effort will shift Wednesday to Helsinki, where
Viktor Chernomyrdin, Russia's special envoy for the Balkans,
will meet with fellow mediator Ahtisaari and U.S. Deputy
Secretary of State Strobe Talbott.
Correspondents William Drozdiak in Berlin and John Ward
Anderson in Kukes, Albania, and special correspondent
Sarah Delaney in Rome contributed to this report.
[PEN-L:6999] (Fwd) ALLIES DIVIDED ON PATH TO PEACE IN KOSOVO
ts99u-1.cc.umanitoba.ca [130.179.154.224] Tue, 18 May 1999 22:25:22 -0500
