Cloud blocks NATO raids, diplomacy picks up

Mon, 12 Apr 1999, 00:00 WIB | 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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