World

U.S. Offers Serbs A Deal

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

October 5, 1998 / 9:44 AM EDT / CBS

With threats of a NATO attack looming larger, the Clinton administration has offered Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic a deal that would head off a NATO attack and postpone questions about Kosovo's future independence for two or three years.

A political decision by the 16 NATO nations on whether to bomb the Serbs is still in limbo, but plans for an attack "are on a fast track," said a senior U.S. official heading for the Middle East with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

Milosevic has ordered most of his Serb army units back to their barracks, withdrawn police units and apparently ordered a halt to the burning of villages. Some 250,000 people remain homeless, with winter approaching.

Richard Holbrooke, the American diplomat who helped engineer an end to ethnic warfare in Bosnia three years ago, brought a deal to Belgrade on Monday.

While a decision about independence would be deferred, Kosovo's ethnic Albanians would be permitted many self-rule privileges that Milosevic stripped away in 1989. They include having their own civil institutions, police and schools.

At the end of the interim period, Serb and Albanian negotiators would decide whether Kosovo would become independent, an autonomous region of Serbia, a republic like Montenegro, or some hybrid of these.

Offcials stressed that NATO would withdraw its threat to attack the Serbs only if Milosevic agreed to a troop withdrawal, an end to repression, serious negotiations with the ethnic Albanians and access for relief organizations and international observers.

If Milosevic rebuffs Holbrooke, Albright and the 15 other NATO foreign ministers are expected to convene in Brussels, Belgium, on Thursday to decide their next steps.