May 22, 1999
BELGRADE
Yugoslavs Demand a Role in U.N. Kosovo Settlement
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By STEVEN ERLANGER
ELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- Yugoslavia insisted Friday that it
must play a central role in negotiations within the United Nations to
end the war and bring a political
settlement to Kosovo, and that Belgrade would not simply let NATO
dictate a solution.
"Read my lips," the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Nebojsa Vujovic,
said in English. "It's not about
NATO. It's about the U.N."
Vujovic, who is an Assistant
Foreign Minister, said Yugoslavia
was eager for a political agreement
that would grant Kosovo "wide autonomy and self-government, based
on the principle of equal status for all
communities," including the province's minority Serbs.
But he also said Belgrade must
play a role in carrying out a settlement, which he said must respect the
sovereignty of both Yugoslavia and
Serbia over Kosovo.
Vujovic praised the efforts of
the Russian special envoy, Viktor S.
Chernomyrdin, who in difficult talks
with Deputy Secretary of State
Strobe Talbott has been trying to find
a balance between Belgrade's demands and those of the NATO alliance.
Among Chernomyrdin's great
virtues, Vujovic said, is his effort
to "reaffirm the vital state interests
of Yugoslavia in bringing this crisis
to an end," including respect for its
"sovereignty and dignity."
Two of the difficulties in those
talks, Yugoslav and American officials say, are Belgrade's desire to be
an active negotiating partner and its
desire to keep more than a symbolic
number of troops and policemen inside Kosovo, along its borders with
Macedonia and Albania, and on
guard at Serbian holy sites.
Senior Yugoslav officials have
said President Slobodan Milosevic is
ready for a settlement in Kosovo and
will meet most of NATO's requirements, including the presence of
some NATO troops in any United
Nations force. But the officials emphasize that he needs to be seen as a
serious negotiator from a sovereign
country rather than as a vanquished
foe capitulating to NATO demands.
Vujovic insisted Friday, for example, that while Belgrade was
ready to accept a United Nations
mission in Kosovo as part of a settlement, who takes part in that mission,
and "its mandate, modalities and
volume" should be negotiated in "direct dialogue" between Secretary
General Kofi Annan and the Yugoslav Government.
"We need a political solution that
can fly and can be operable," he said.
"It's about a global solution to be
discussed within the U.N. Security
Council."
NATO began its air attacks on
Yugoslavia without a Security Council resolution, insisting that its actions were legally founded in the
right of "humanitarian intervention." But NATO officials knew that
they could not get such a Security
Council resolution, because Russia
and China said they would veto one.
The Germans, French and Italians
went along, even though they were
unhappy about the lack of United
Nations authorization.
Belgrade has said it is fighting to
preserve international law and the
postwar order as well as its sovereignty. It has demanded that any
political solution be cast in a United
Nations Security Council resolution
and that any international force put
into Kosovo be under a United Nations flag.
NATO has issued a joint statement
with the Group of Seven industrial
countries and Russia calling for a
Security Council resolution. But
NATO is reluctant to get into direct
negotiations with Milosevic, preferring to use the Russians as a go-between.
But now fearing that Moscow is too
close to Belgrade, NATO has deputized President Martti Ahtisaari of
Finland to act on its behalf alongside
Chernomyrdin.
Chernomyrdin spent nearly
seven hours in talks with Milosevic this week, then flew back to Moscow for further talks with Talbott and Ahtisaari, which were
inclusive. But Talbott said they
were making progress and would
continue next week in Moscow.
So it is not clear whether Chernomyrdin will return here for more
talks with Milosevic on Monday
or Tuesday, as both men originally
announced.
Vujovic Friday emphasized the
positive, saying: "We are open to a
peaceful solution, open to diplomatic
negotiations. We are open to playing
a constructive role in reaching a
political solution on Kosovo."
But NATO wants nearly all Serbian forces to be withdrawn from Kosovo and Belgrade's authority to be
supplanted in Kosovo by an international authority until new elections
can be organized. So there is much
left to negotiate.
Still, senior Yugoslav officials say
they believe a settlement is inevitable unless NATO countries -- Britain
in particular -- balk and harden the
alliance's demands.
Vujovic repeated Belgrade's
demands for a bombing halt and a
withdrawal of NATO forces from
Yugoslavia's borders as a precondition for any political settlement.
Earlier Friday, NATO air strikes
hit a fuel depot in Belgrade, shattering the windows of the Swiss Ambassador's residence as he was holding
a National Day reception.
Among the guests was the Swedish
Ambassador, whose own residence
had its doors and windows blown out
the previous night when an errant
bomb hit a hospital, killing three
patients and a security guard. The
residences of the Norwegian, Spanish, Indian and Hungarian Ambassadors were also damaged, as was the
Libyan Embassy.
The Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet quoted the Swedish Ambassador,
Mats Staffansson, as saying: "We
had just come to dessert when a
crash came. Four cruise missiles
came down on a fuel depot only 300
yards from the Swiss residence. An
enormous pressure wave broke a
very large picture window in the
dining room. I, the Slovak Ambassador and the Vatican Ambassador
threw ourselves under the dining
room table to get out of the way of
the flying glass."
In Bern, Switzerland, the United
States Ambassador to Switzerland,
Madeleine M. Kunin, apologized.
Switzerland represents American interests in Belgrade.
