------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date sent: Tue, 18 May 1999 11:39:07 -0700 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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