Many leaders backs strikes; China Russia call foul
Many leaders backs strikes; China Russia call foul
TOKYO (AP): Many Asian and European leaders backed NATO airstrikes on Yugoslavia as vital to preventing further bloodshed in Kosovo, but Indonesia joined China and Russia in condemning the attacks.
"Japan understands NATO's use of force as measures that had to be taken to prevent humanitarian catastrophe of a further increase in victims," Japanese Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said in a statement on Thursday.
Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi also expressed support, calling the strikes "an unavoidable step to prevent a humanitarian atrocity," according to the Kyodo News agency.
Similarly, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic's refusal to end attacks on Kosovo's ethnic Albanians made military action necessary.
"History has told us if you sit by and do nothing, you pay a much greater price later on," he said.
U.S. and allied aircraft pounded Yugoslavia with missiles and bombs Wednesday after months of diplomacy failed to end a year of fighting between Yugoslav forces and ethnic Albanian separatists.
More than 2,000 people have been killed in the conflict and over 400,000 left homeless in Kosovo, a Yugoslav province.
China, Russia and Indonesia spoke out against the bombings. "I am extremely concerned and worried," state media quoted Chinese President Jiang Zemin as saying Wednesday in Milan, Italy, where he is on a state visit.
"We appeal for an immediate end to the airstrikes and to put the Kosovo issue back on the track of political solution," Jiang was quoted as saying by China's state-run Xinhua News Agency.
Russian President Boris Yeltsin said his nation was "deeply upset by NATO's military action against sovereign Yugoslavia."
Russia called an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council in New York, where Secretary-General Kofi Annan chided NATO for acting without consulting the Security Council.
In Indonesia, the government expressed sorrow over the bombings and called on all parties to stop violence and return to negotiations.
Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said that although his country usually condemned military solutions to international crises, it supported the NATO strikes as necessary to prevent genocide.
New Zealand Foreign Minister Don McKinnon agreed that NATO strikes were justified and inevitable.
"We want to see relief for the misery of people of Kosovo and a peaceful and durable negotiated solution," McKinnon said.
And in Sweden, officials seemed resigned. "All efforts to resolve this by peaceful ways failed," Foreign Minister Anna Lindh said Thursday on state-run TV.
Earlier, in Berlin, 15 European Union leaders issued a statement saying Milosevic could "stop the military actions by ceasing his use of violence in Kosovo without delay and accepting the Rambouillet accords" - the pact aimed at bringing peace to Yugoslavia.
French President Jacques Chirac said the attacks were launched to defend "peace on our soil, peace in Europe."
In Toronto, about 50 Serbian-Canadians demonstrated outside the U.S. consulate. The protesters chanted "Hey, hey, U.S.A., how many Serbs you kill today?" They carried signs that read "NATO: Don't end a war by starting another."
Up to 400 protesters gathered outside Blair's residence in London on Wednesday night to condemn the bombings, Scotland Yard said.
In front of New York's Grand Central Terminal, about 80 supporters of the airstrikes traded jeers with some 300 protesters. Chants of "Stop the bombing, stop the war" by the protesters were countered by proponents chanting "Drop the Bomb" and "U-S-A."