World

No Milosevic, No Sanctions

October 6, 2000 / 4:29 PM EDT / CBS/AP

The United States intends to move quickly in concert with European allies to remove the economic handcuffs placed on Yugoslavia to punish ousted President Slobodan Milosevic.

But it also will be on the alert to efforts by Milosevic's close aides to secretly strip the government's treasury, three U.S. officials said.

In the last few days, millions of dollars were intercepted by supporters of President-elect Vojislav Kostunica before they could be secreted out of Yugoslavia, said one of the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"Now is not the time for the United States or our allies to retreat from the Balkans in complacency," President Bill Clinton said. "Now is the time to stay the course and stick with people who have won their freedom, the time to build the economic and civil institutions that will allow democracy to endure, reconciliation and cooperation to develop, and the economy to grow."

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said the administration was consulting with the Europeans on how to proceed.

But if Milosevic somehow managed to carve out a role for himself in the new government, she said, lifting sanctions might be reconsidered.

"We have made clear that it has to be a fully democratic government, and that Milosevic should not have a role in it," Albright said. "And as we talk about lifting the sanctions, I think that that is obviously one of the things we have mind, but so does everybody else."

Conceding defeat Friday, Milosevic said that after resting and spending time with his family he plans to "help my party gain force and contribute to future prosperity."

Clinton, meanwhile, talked with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on the telephone Friday and "agreed that Mr. Milosevic should have no political role in the future of Yugoslavia," P.J. Crowley, a White House spokesman, said.

The aim in restoring economic ties to Belgrade would be to bolster and reward Kostunica, who won the Sept. 24 election with psychological and rhetorical U.S. support.

Regardless of the fate of other sanctions, a ban on transferring assets out of Yugoslavia probably will remain in place for some time. The reason, a senior State Department official said, is to try to prevent supporters of Milosevic from leaving the country with "bags of money."

U.S. and European sanctions on Serbia, the larger of Yugoslavia's two republics, include an oil embargo; a ban on commerce with Yugoslav firms believed controlled by the Milosevic government; U.S. visas for high-level officials; and full rights in the United Nations and at the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other lending institutions.

Foreign ministers of the 15 European Union countries are to meet in Luxembourg on Monday to lift the oil embargo imposed on Serbia during the Kosovo war in early 1999 and ease most of the union's remaining sanctions.

EU officials said European oil companies could be autorized to resume deliveries to Serbia within days of the ministers' decision.

"We want to do what we promised to do ... to ensure the people of Serbia can rejoin Europe as rapidly as possible," EU External Affairs Commissioner Chris Patten said Friday in Brussels, Belgium.

An arms embargo imposed by the United Nations can be ended only by a U.N. Security Council resolution.

Clinton, in conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, encouraged Moscow to recognize the "clear results" of the election, national security adviser Sandy Berger said.

That's what Ivanov did Friday on a visit to Belgrade. He said, however, that Milosevic "intends to play a prominent role in the political life of the country."

Responded Berger: "That is something we could not support."

At the State Department, Albright said the administration looks forward to "establishing a perfectly normal relationship with a new Kostunica government."

At the same time, she acknowledged that he has had differences with the United States.

"I know what President Kostunica has said and I know him to be a Serb nationalist," she said. "I also know that he is not a former communist and I also know that he does not believe that dealing with Serbia's policy includes ethnic cleansing and devastation of the rights of those that are not ethnic Serbs."