Yeltsin Warns Clinton to Not Attack Serbs

Serbs reject foreign peacekeeping troops in Kosovo peace plan

   Copyright (c) 1999 Nando Media

   Copyright (c) 1999 Associated Press

   By DUSAN STOJANOVIC

   RAMBOUILLET, France (February 18, 1999 7:04 p.m. EST
   http://www.nandotimes.com) -

   The Serbs Thursday rejected foreign peacekeeping troops, threatening
   to scuttle a Kosovo peace agreement with ethnic Albanians as the
   accord's deadline fast approached and NATO prepared for aistrikes. The
   Western demand that any deal for Kosovo be policed by 30,000 NATO
   troops, including 4,000 American soldiers, is the key element of the
   draft peace agreement. NATO has threatened airstrikes against Serbia
   if an agreement is not reached by noon Saturday deadline imposed by
   the United States and five European countries.

   Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, speaking Thursday in
   Washington, refused to say when NATO might attack. She planned to fly
   to Paris on Friday to rejoin the negotiations.

   The United States, which on Wednesday ordered an additional 51
   warplanes to Europe, has warned that strikes will be "swift and
   severe."

   Yet in an interview with the Le Figaro daily, French Foreign Minister
   Alain Richard said NATO will not automatically take military action
   against Yugoslavia if an agreement is not reached. "The situation will
   have to be evaluated," Richard was quoted as saying in the interview
   being published Friday in Le Figaro.

   Thursday in Seattle, Defense Secretary William Cohen told reporters
   the additional planes would begin arriving in Europe this weekend,
   backing up hundreds of aircraft already in place, and would be ready
   for a possible attack by the middle of next week.

   Albright said she had told Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in a
   telephone call he would be "hit hard" if NATO attacks.

   Foreign Ministers Hubert Vedrine of France and Robin Cook of Britain,
   co-hosts of the peace conference in a 14th-century chateau here,
   appealed to the people of Serb-led Yugoslavia, saying they will make
   "a very serious decision in the next few hours."

   "You have a choice: either end the conflict and bring Yugoslavia into
   the family of modern European nations, or thrust it once again into a
   cycle of internal conflicts and isolation," the foreign ministers said
   in a joint statement sent to Belgrade media.

   Serbian officials appeared unmoved, adamantly rejecting NATO-led
   peacekeepers. U.S. officials have said there is no deal without the
   implementation force.

   "Under no circumstances, absolutely out of the question, should
   foreign troops be in Kosovo to enforce any political agreement," said
   Dragan Tomic, Serbia's parliament speaker and a close ally of
   Milosevic. At stake in the talks is the future of Kosovo, the poor
   southern province of Serbia where 90 percent of the population is
   ethnic Albanian. An estimated 2,000 people have died and hundreds of
   thousands have been driven from their homes in a year of clashes
   between Serb security forces and independence-seeking Kosovo
   Albanians. Serbia is the main republic in Yugoslavia.

   The call for a NATO police force revealed deep differences between the
   United States and Russia, Serbia's political ally.

   Christopher Hill, the American who is leading the talks, said the
   Russians do not agree with the military aspects of the plan. Boris
   Mayorski, his Russian counterpart, said Russia was not taking part in
   any discussions on the military annex to the peace agreement.

   Russian President Boris Yeltsin said Thursday that he warned President
   Clinton not to strike even if peace talks fail.

   "We will not allow Kosovo to be touched," Yeltsin said he told Clinton
   during a recent phone conversation. He did not say how Moscow would
   respond if attacks were carried out. Clinton spokesman Joe Lockhart
   said, however, that the American president has had no recent telephone
   conversations with Yeltsin about Kosovo.

   The proposed three-year interim peace agreement would give majority
   Kosovo Albanians wide autonomy while keeping the province within
   Serb-led Yugoslavia. It also calls for the disarming of the rebel
   Kosovo Liberation Army, something the KLA has said it will never
   accept.

   Sources close to the Serbian delegation at the talks said if the
   pressure continues, they might consider allowing foreign troops in
   Kosovo, but only if they did not include soldiers from "unfriendly"
   nations like the United States, Germany, Britain and France. Americans
   would never accept such Serbian conditions, a senior Western diplomat
   said.