Cloud blocks NATO raids, diplomacy picks up

Mon, 12 Apr 1999 | Source: REUTERS

BELGRADE (Reuters): NATO blasted targets in Yugoslavia on Sunday, but cloudy weather again blocked some raids and, while the Western alliance beefed up its forces, diplomatic moves to try to end the conflict gained momentum.

Yugoslavia's official news agency Tanjug said explosions had been heard in the Kosovo regional capital Pristina at 11:30 a.m. (4:30 p.m. Jakarta time) after more than 50 missiles hit the area overnight.

It gave no details of damage in Pristina but said there had been casualties after an attack on the village of Merdare 30 km north of the provincial capital.

Earlier, it said two main roads leading into Pristina had been bombed overnight, causing "huge" damage but no casualties.

In Brussels, a NATO official said bad weather had again hampered air strikes and some missions had been canceled.

But NATO had hit at Yugoslav military radar and anti-aircraft missile sites, an Interior Ministry Special Police headquarters and a fuel dump near Pristina.

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was flying to Europe for talks with NATO and Russia's foreign minister on the air campaign, which shows no signs of ending after nearly three weeks and increasingly threatens relations with Moscow.

Albright, a key Clinton administration advocate of using force to influence Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, was headed first to Brussels, NATO's headquarters.

Tensions rose on Friday when Russian President Boris Yeltsin said he had told NATO not to push Moscow, which has close ties to its fellow Slavs, into the conflict because that could spark a European or even a world war.

But Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, who is to meet Albright in Oslo on Tuesday, repeated denials that Yeltsin had ordered Russia's nuclear missiles to be aimed at NATO countries in response to the air strikes in Yugoslavia.

In an interview in Spain's Diario 16 newspaper, he said he believed his talks with Albright could lead to a solution.

"What we have to do is put an end to this war, which does nothing but complicate things, and resume political dialog," Ivanov was quoted as saying. "From our point of view that is possible."

"Russia is not going to be the country that unleashes the Third World War or any other military conflict of an international nature," he said.

NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana told BBC radio there were signs that Milosevic's position was starting to shift and he was hopeful of "positive" diplomatic movement in coming days.

At the Vatican, Pope John Paul again called for an end to the conflict and a resumption of talks, uniting in prayer with Orthodox Christians in Yugoslavia and elsewhere who were celebrating Easter.

As NATO deployed more planes and an aircraft carrier, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said: "We are turning the screw on President Milosevic and piling on the pressure."

He said Serbian forces were low on fuel and communication centers had been hit so hard that field commanders had to communicate by mobile phone. He insisted in an interview on BBC television that unity among the NATO allies had strengthened.

The Pentagon said last Saturday that 82 more planes were being sent to Europe. Britain said its aircraft carrier HMS Invincible would join NATO's armory.

NATO has around 600 attack and support planes which, with warships firing cruise missiles, have been attacking Serb strategic and military targets since March 24.

The campaign aims to press Milosevic to reverse what NATO calls ethnic cleansing of the mainly Moslem Albanian majority in Kosovo and allow the refugees to return and a NATO-led military force in the southern Serbian province to protect them.

Belgrade says its forces in Kosovo are merely responding to aggression by the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army and by NATO, which it accuses of violating international law, sponsoring terrorism and seeking to dismember Serbia.

Last Saturday night, several thousand Kosovo refugees streamed into northern Albania after Yugoslavia reopened its main border crossing and carried out another wave of expulsions.

Some NATO governments have put on hold their offers to take in thousands of the 500,000 people who have fled Kosovo since March 24 because the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR urged that refugees stay in the region if possible.

In Brussels, NATO officials said Operation Allied Harbor, which is to deploy 8,000 NATO troops in Albania to help aid agencies care for the 300,000 Kosovo deportees sheltering there, was due to be approved by NATO members in the course of Sunday.

Albania said it was ready to accept more NATO troops.

In Macedonia, which has also been flooded with refugees, two main border crossings with Yugoslavia, at Blace and Jazence, were empty on Sunday. Macedonian guards said no one had crossed overnight from Kosovo.

NATO says the number of ethnic Albanians expelled or uprooted in the past year is now estimated at 960,000. A 1991 census put Kosovo's total population at just under two million.

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