-Caveat Lector-
Albright Meets With Russia Minister
By BARRY SCHWEID
.c The Associated Press
OSLO, Norway (AP) -- With NATO unity reaffirmed, Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright is holding out to Russia a role in peacekeeping in Kosovo while
cautioning against providing military intelligence or aid to Yugoslavia.
``We believe Russia has a constructive role to play in helping to bring about
and implement a settlement,'' State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said
today upon arriving in Oslo with Albright in a springtime snowstorm.
``Russia has found itself out of the mainstream,'' Rubin said against a
backdrop of U.S. assertions that virtually all of Europe supports the NATO
bombardment of Yugoslavia.
Today's fence-mending meeting here with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov
follows a North Atlantic Council meeting in Brussels in which the 19 NATO
allies considered having Russian and other European troops join in enforcing
a settlement in the province if Yugoslavia accepts peace terms.
While NATO would lead the force, ``that doesn't mean there are not other ways
that other forces could be part of that,'' Albright told reporters Monday.
``It is absolutely necessary to have the Russians involved,'' French Foreign
Minister Hubert Vedrine said. ``Not just as a matter of form, but of
substance.''
Russia has suspended its ties with NATO to protest the bombing of the Serbs
and sent a spy ship toward the Adriatic Sea. In ordering the moves, President
Boris Yeltsin alleged that the United States and its allies ``want to take
over Yugoslavia, make it their protectorate.''
American officials traveling with Albright said they have no evidence Russia
helped Yugoslavia with intelligence. Albright said Sunday on her flight from
Washington that she reminded Russia the United Nations had imposed an arms
embargo on Yugoslavia.
``It is important to abide by that Security Council resolution ... and we
expect them to do so,'' Albright said.
She then turned down an appeal for weapons from a representative of the
Kosovo Liberation Army. A senior U.S. official said she told Jakup Krasniqi
at a meeting Monday that any move to arm the rebels in defiance of a U.N.
arms embargo on all sides in Yugoslavia could weaken support for the ethnic
Albanians.
Moscow also argues that NATO is acting illegally in Kosovo because the U.N.
Security Council hasn't explicitly authorized action.
Norwegian Foreign Minister Knut Vollebaek said he did not expect a
breakthrough in the U.S-Russian rift.
``I believe we should lower our expectations,'' he said.
Norway, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, holds the
rotating chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe. That is the capacity in which Vollebaek is playing host to today's
meeting.
``They both were interested in meeting,'' Vollebaek said. ``They wanted a
neutral ground, and the OSCE was acceptable for both.''
The Norwegian told reporters that it was important that ``we make the Russian
side understand that our demands are not negotiable.''
Albright said hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians still in Kosovo face
starvation, and the NATO ministers had begun discussions of ways to p)their
rights in the event of a settlement.
After confirming NATO's unity at 19-nation foreign ministers meeting,
Albright said while partition of Kosovo was not an option, the foreign
ministers considered ``some kind of international protective status'' for the
region Milosevic has pledged not to surrender.
Such a protectorate would allow the ethnic Albanians, who numbered 1p million
and made up 90 percent of the population before exodus and execution, ``to
live with a high degree of self-government without the threats and terror
that they have been living under,'' Albright said.
She said ``there are a number of ideas that are out there'' and ``none of
those have been settled upon.''
In a parallel move certain to anger the Yugoslav president, NATO is moving to
deny Milosevic authority to keep Serb troops in Kosovo after the conflict.
A six-nation peace plan that he rejected would have permitted 5,000 Serb
troops to remain, half of them to patrol the border of Kosovo, which would
remain a part of Serbia. The other half would leave after a year.
Milosevic nullified autonomy in the Serbian province a decade ago and has
refused to accept a settlement that would maximize autonomy but not extend
independence to the province.
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