[PEN-L:5586] (Fwd) MOSCOW STANDS BY MILOSEVIC

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Date sent:              Mon, 19 Apr 1999 11:08:48 -0700
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From:                   Sid Shniad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject:                MOSCOW STANDS BY MILOSEVIC 

Reuters                                                                 April 19, 1999

MOSCOW STANDS BY MILOSEVIC 

        Meanwhile, British Prime Minister tells Milosevic
        he will be forced to withdraw from Kosovo

BRUSSELS - Russian President Boris Yeltsin warned the West 
Monday he would not allow it to defeat President Slobodan 
Milosevic and establish control over Yugoslavia.
        Yeltsin, speaking hours before a scheduled telephone 
conversation with President Clinton, said Moscow could not ditch 
Milosevic whom the West has accused of war crimes.
        Clinton had asked for the telephone call to seek a solution to 
the crisis in Yugoslavia, which NATO has been bombing for nearly 
four weeks to end what it calls Belgrade's attempt to empty the 
southern Serbian province of Kosovo of its ethnic Albanian 
majority.
        The 19-nation alliance called off most of its air raids overnight 
because of bad weather in the Balkans.
        Kosovo Albanian guerrillas pleaded Monday for NATO tactical 
air strikes to save thousands of cold and hungry refugees trapped in 
the mountains of central Kosovo from Serbian shelling.
        A Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) official said some 40,000 
refugees sheltering in the Berisha mountains had come under heavy 
fire since Sunday.
        The United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR, said Monday 
Yugoslav forces appeared to be turning back ethnic Albanians 
trying to leave the country.
        UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski said the latest flow of 
refugees from Kosovo into Albania had stopped overnight. He said 
refugees had also stopped crossing into the neighboring former 
Yugoslav republic of Macedonia and Montenegro, which with 
Serbia makes up the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
        British Prime Minister Tony Blair vowed to force Milosevic to 
pull his troops out of Kosovo and return the province to ''the people 
to whom it belongs.''
        ''You will be made to withdraw from Kosovo,'' Blair said in 
speech addressed to Milosevic.
        Yeltsin, whose earlier attempts to mediate in the conflict have 
failed, met top security officials Monday, including Prime Minister 
Yevgeny Primakov and newly appointed Kosovo envoy Viktor 
Chernomyrdin, to work out Russia's strategy.
        ''Bill Clinton hopes that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic 
will capitulate, give up the whole of Yugoslavia. We will not allow 
this. This is a strategic place,'' Itar-Tass news agency quoted Yeltsin 
as saying.
        Russian news agencies quoted Yeltsin as saying that during his 
conversation with Clinton he would reiterate Moscow's call for a 
halt to NATO air strikes to allow more talks.
        Interfax news agency quoted Yeltsin as saying Russia would 
exercise ''restraint'' in handling the Kosovo crisis, but it would 
maintain close ties with Milosevic.
        It quoted him as saying: ''We simply cannot ditch Milosevic. We 
want to embrace him as tight as possible.''
        Russia has bitterly denounced NATO air strikes but made clear 
it will not get drawn into the conflict militarily.
        Washington said it had the support for the war from the states 
surrounding Serbia, to which hundreds of thousands of Kosovo 
Albanians have fled.
        ''All of the leaders made clear that they stand behind what 
NATO is doing, that President Milosevic is isolated and that his 
brutality and repression will not go unanswered,'' a spokesman said 
of Clinton's telephone calls to Hungary, Bulgaria, Albania and 
Romania.
        Yugoslavia severed diplomatic relations with Albania Sunday, 
accusing it of siding with NATO.
        Despite criticism that 26 days of NATO air strikes had failed to 
stop the killings and deportations in Kosovo, Secretary of State 
Madeleine Albright said Sunday there was no immediate plan for 
ground troops.
        But she added: ''That assessment can be quickly updated and 
that is where we are.''
        Blair, addressing what he described as a simple message to 
Milosevic, said Monday an international military force ''will go in to 
secure the land for the people to whom it belongs.''
        ''The dispossessed refugees of Kosovo will be brought back into 
possession of that which is rightfully theirs. Our determination on 
these points -- the minimum demands civilization makes -- is 
absolute,'' he said.
        Hundreds of thousands of refugees have streamed out of 
Kosovo since to escape Yugoslav forces. But those unable to cross 
into neighboring countries have taken to the hills of central Kosovo.
        ''There is no escape for anyone from this area,'' Sokol Bashota, 
a member of the KLA General Headquarters, told Reuters by 
telephone.
        ''They are coming at us from three directions and there are Serb 
forces in place to the south in the Klecka area. We are trapped here 
and we need NATO's help,'' he said.
        Western diplomats said the KLA wanted NATO to divert air 
power to knock out Serbian artillery and drop food and medical 
supplies to refugees facing starvation and epidemics.
        ''The KLA is asking why can't Serbian heavy weapons be taken 
out when it has been reporting their positions to NATO for weeks,'' 
said a Western military observer who asked not to be named.
        ''They think it's all very well to blast bridges and oil refineries in 
Novi Sad but their struggle to shield ethnic Albanian villagers from 
Serbian attack would be more effective if NATO focused on hitting 
the Serbs in Kosovo,'' he told Reuters. Novi Sad is the capital of 
Serbia's northern province of Vojvodina