U.S.: Wait And See On Kosovo
Although skeptical of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's intentions, President Clinton said Tuesday he is satisfied that international monitoring in Kosovo will give NATO leaders the information they need to decide whether to launch air strikes against the hard-line leader's Serb forces.
"I'm very pleased about where we are today because we are not dependent on hope," Mr. Clinton said in brief remarks at the White House. "We can just look at the facts and see what he does."
View President Clinton's Statement On Kosovo.size=2>
President Clinton announced Monday a tentative deal with Milosevic to withdraw Serb troops from Kosovo, while the NATO alliance authorized the use of military force to bring the brutal crackdown in the province to an end. CBS News White House Correspondent Bill Plante reports.
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Milosevic's last-minute agreement to comply with U.N. Security Council Resolution 1199 was made after U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke spent several days of intense negotiations with him in Belgrade.
"I can't stress too highly how deeply concerned we are about what happened in the last few months in Kosovo. The tragedy, the horror of it, the unnecessariness of it. And that, of course is why we came here. We hope this will mark a turning point in the right direction," Holbrooke said.
The resolution demands an end to attacks on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo and the start of credible talks on autonomy for Kosovo.
Hundreds of people have been killed and more than 300,000 uprooted since Milosevic began his crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in February. Many refugees are living in the open after Serb forces burned down their homes, and aid officials fear a humanitarian disaster with winter approaching.
Ethnic Albanians represent 90 percent of Kosovo's 2 million people and most favor independence.
 President Milosevic |
The question now is whether that commitment can be turned into compliance and that that compliance can be verified, reports CBS News Correspondent Mark Phillips.
Holbrooke announced in Belgrade Tuesday that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe will have 2,000 international monitors on the ground to check on the promised Serb withdrawal from Kosovo. Compliance also will be monitored from the air by non-military aircraft. An unspecified number of people on the verification team will be Americans, although no U.S. ground troops will be deployed.
If Milosevic keps his word - pulling troops out of Kosovo, returning refugees to what is left of their homes, and allowing the province to have political autonomy - then NATO will not use force, a threat that pressured the Yugoslav leader to make Monday's deal.
However, Milosevic has a poor track record, and NATO air power, including U.S. forces, stand ready to strike.
 NATO tanks prepare for a strike. |
"One of the most important things that happened yesterday was, for only its second time in history, NATO voted to authorize the use of military force if there is not compliance," National Security Advisor Sandy Berger told CBS News.
"We'll take another look at this at the end of the week, [but] that threat remains on the table. It depends now on Mr. Milosevic, whether he will comply with the commitments he has made," he added.
U.S. forces had been among those preparing to hit Yugoslavia. Six U.S. B-52 bombers arrived in Britain Sunday and a contingent of A-10 antitank planes flew from Germany to Italy.
Meanwhile, the Russian parliament voted Tuesday to send a fact-finding delegation of lawmakers to Kosovo. Russia has good relations with Yugoslavia, and has opposed the use of NATO air strikes.
Several diplomatic stages have yet to determine the outcome of the situation.
The OSCE said Tuesday it hoped to sign a deal on Friday with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic on sending an observation mission to Kosovo, a key condition for averting NATO air strikes. Arrangements must also be made for NATO forces to be allowed to make non-military flights over Kosovo, without intervention by the Serbian Air Force.
Milosevic's government had no immediate comment on the announcements in New York and Brussels.
The Kosovo Liberation Army, reacting to first details of the deal between Milosevic and the West, said Tuesday any accord that guaranteed Kosovo autonomy within Serbia was unacceptable.
Swiss-based KLA spokesman Bardyhl Mahmuti said the KLA would reject this. "We insist on full independence. We cannot live with Serbia," he told Reuters. He said however that the KLA would accept a deal that would give Kosovo's people the right to self-determination after a transition period of three years.