[PEN-L:7811] (Fwd) MILOSEVIC SILENT ON A PULLOUT AS NATO-SERB TALKS GO ON -

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Date sent:              Mon, 07 Jun 1999 16:54:18 -0700
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Subject:                MILOSEVIC SILENT ON A PULLOUT AS NATO-SERB TALKS GO ON - IHT

The International Herald Tribune        Paris, Tuesday, June 8, 1999

MILOSEVIC SILENT ON A PULLOUT AS NATO-SERB TALKS GO ON 

        By Joseph Fitchett

        The United States and Russia faced a potential diplomatic crisis 
Monday over a pivotal UN Security Council resolution that NATO 
hopes will provide uncontested international legitimacy for a military 
presence to replace Serbian armed forces in Kosovo. 
        Daylong talks outside Bonn, led by Secretary of State Madeleine 
Albright and Igor Ivanov, the Russian foreign minister, were 
suspended until Tuesday after Mr. Ivanov said that he needed time to 
get instructions from President Boris Yeltsin. The talks also included 
foreign ministers of the other major industrialized countries in the 
Group of Seven: Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan.
        Approval of the resolution by the United Nations would eliminate 
a problem raised by Serbian military officers in talks with NATO that 
deadlocked late Sunday and blocked plans for a handover in Kosovo 
between 40,000 Serbian forces and NATO peacekeepers.
        Earlier, U.S. officials had voiced concern that Mr. Ivanov was 
trying to distance Russia from commitments made by Viktor 
Chernomyrdin, Russia's representative on the Kosovo crisis. 
        Faced with signs that Moscow was reluctant to demand Serbian 
compliance with the terms set last week by Mr. Chernomyrdin in 
Belgrade, President Bill Clinton called President Boris Yeltsin early 
Monday, urging him to give Russian support for a draft resolution 
requiring complete Serbian military withdrawal from Kosovo and 
backing an international presence that implicitly would be a NATO-
led force.
        In Washington, Joe Lockhart, the White House spokesman, said 
that the foreign ministers had made ''substantial progress'' on the text 
of a UN resolution, but that the United States was ''neither optimistic 
nor pessimistic'' about the overall movement toward a peaceful 
solution for Kosovo.
        Asked whether the slow movement in the military talks for a 
Serbian withdrawal represented a bump in the road to peace or an 
unraveling of diplomatic efforts, Mr. Lockhart said, ''It would be 
foolhardy to try to predict that.''
        Asked whether the United States might consider accepting a 
peacekeeping force without NATO at its core, Mr. Lockhart 
replied, ''No, that's not negotiable.''
        The UN resolution would have the effect of imposing a settlement 
on Kosovo involving international control of the Serbian province and 
the return of ethnic Albanian refugees - the core of a peace plan that 
Western leaders now accuse the Yugoslav leader, Slobodan 
Milosevic, of reneging on over the weekend. After apparently 
accepting the basic plan last week in talks with envoys from the 
European Union and Russia, Mr. Milosevic seemed to go back on his 
promise via his military commanders in technical talks that broke 
down late Sunday. 
        ''The Serbs are up to their old tricks; maybe Milosevic telling the 
army to hang tough and even pretend to revolt against the deal he and 
the Serb Parliament signed up to,'' a U.S. official said in Washington. 
        Mr. Milosevic could be trying to salvage some concessions on 
Kosovo, other diplomats added, saying that he might be hoping that 
the show of Serbian defiance might aggravate political in Moscow and 
cause a rift in the diplomatic teamwork between the NATO countries 
and Russia.
        NATO officials said that prompt Serbian compliance might 
depend on a strong Russian signal - via the UN resolution - that Mr. 
Milosevic could expect no help from Moscow. Without suggesting 
any explicit linkage between Kosovo and the outlook for Western 
economic aid to Russia, officials noted that the current exchanges 
were occurring only 10 days before the summit meeting involving 
leaders of the Group of Seven and President Yeltsin.
        NATO governments, reacting in unison, took the position that 
bombing would resume while the alliance waited for new 
developments in Belgrade, where opposition to the war has reportedly 
started surfacing strongly. Germany played down fears of a 
breakdown in the peace process, but other NATO governments 
reacted more firmly. A French official was quoted saying that Paris 
was prepared to back ground action by NATO forces in Kosovo, if 
necessary, without UN approval.
        As NATO ranks closed, Western leaders focused on maintaining 
the teamwork with Moscow that apparently forced Belgrade to yield 
on Kosovo last week - and was now being tested in the talks outside 
Bonn. 
        The talks, which had been postponed since Saturday, took on fresh 
urgency Monday after the standoff in the military talks in Macedonia 
between NATO commanders and Serbian officers to work out details 
about putting a cease-fire into effect in Kosovo. 
        Officially, Russia had sought to distance itself from the talks 
involving NATO after Mr. Chernomyrdin had obtained Belgrade's 
acceptance of the international peace plan for Kosovo - and a Russian 
military attaché only arrived as an observer Sunday night. A few hours 
later NATO said that the talks were pointless because the Serbian 
military were raising issues that had been settled politically in 
Belgrade last Thursday.
        Much of the security policy establishment in Moscow 
apparently feels that too much has been conceded to NATO 
already, and Mr. Ivanov set a harsh opening tone on his arrival 
in Bonn with accusations that NATO had suddenly raised its 
demands. Western officials countered that the terms of Serbia's 
withdrawal had been accepted by Mr. Chernomyrdin, with the 
understanding that they would be spelled out for Mr. Milosevic by the 
European Union's envoy, President Martti Ahtisaari of Finland.
        At the outset of Monday's meeting, they said, Russia seemed 
reluctant to live up to its side of a bargain set late last week in which 
Washington agreed to drop the word ''NATO'' or even ''Kfor'' - the 
alliance's term for a Kosovo force - from the draft language on 
condition that Serbia proceeded promptly to a full evacuation of its 
forces ''The Serbs pocketed our concession and reneged on theirs and 
now the Russians don't want to know,'' a NATO official said at 
alliance headquarters in Brussels.
        Mr. Rubin seemed to confirm the U.S. concession when he 
said that Washington was not demanding a specific mention of 
NATO as long as Moscow acknowledged that NATO would in 
effect command the force.
        As the bargaining proceeded outside Bonn, the State Department 
spokesman, James Rubin, said that ''some progress'' had been made 
but that the language still fell short of U.S. demands that for airtight 
authorization of a security force in Kosovo with NATO at its core. 
        Asked about Russia's demand for a bombing halt before the 
adoption of a UN resolution, Mr. Rubin said that some form of 
''simultaneity'' might be feasible.
        The text under discussion would provide, said the British foreign 
secretary, Robin Cook, ''for both an international and civil 
administration to run Kosovo and to make sure Milosevic has no say 
in what happens within Kosovo.'' 
        Politically, the effect would be to give the United Nations - and 
not NATO - titular responsibility for future developments in the 
province as it passes under international administration. If worded in 
accordance with Western demands, this step would offer diplomatic 
advantages in the political endgame.
        For example, Mr. Milosevic has always insisted that he would 
only deal with the United Nations and never with NATO, and 
Moscow, too, has sought to end the situation in which NATO - fearful 
of a Russian veto - has effectively ignored the Security Council about 
Kosovo. A UN resolution would lift what was described as a ''major 
sticking point'' in the military talks - the Serbs' report demand that a 
Security Council resolution precede allied forces' entry into Kosovo. 
        Similar demands have come from Russian officials, who maintain 
that Moscow will not back a Security Council resolution that might 
appear to justify NATO air attacks.
        But NATO wants to see Serbian forces start pulling out before 
there is a bombing pause, which would be prolonged as long as the 
Serbian withdrawal continues. This issue, called ''sequencing,'' could 
be solved by a diplomatic formula that made the bombing halt and the 
UN authorization simultaneous.