STOP NATO: �NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- ListBot Sponsor -------------------------- Start Your Own FREE Email List at http://www.listbot.com/links/joinlb ---------------------------------------------------------------------- NATO Seeks U.S. Help Disarming Albanians _____Transcript_____ By Steven Mufson Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, June 22, 2001; Page A22 NATO's secretary general yesterday urged the Bush administration to participate in the alliance's mission to disarm ethnic Albanian rebels once a peace agreement is reached in Macedonia, congressional sources said. During a two-day visit to Washington, NATO chief George Robertson argued that U.S. participation would reinforce a message to ethnic Albanians that the alliance is united in opposing partition of the Balkan nation and in supporting a peaceful settlement of Albanian grievances there, the sources said. The Bush administration, while supporting the mission, has not decided whether to send U.S. troops to join at least 3,000 NATO troops in the mission. Whether it decides to participate could be an important indication of whether the administration is shedding its reluctance to be drawn into small peacekeeping operations. "We're prepared to look at enablers," said an administration official, citing the possibility of helping with intelligence, "strategic lift" and other logistical support. He said the 700 U.S. troops, already in Macedonia to support forces in Kosovo, could provide support to the Macedonia mission as well. "We see this as a good opportunity for the Europeans to mount an operation inside of NATO and with us alongside them," the official said. Robertson, who met with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld Wednesday and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice yesterday, did not publicly comment on the U.S. role. But he said in an interview yesterday that ideally the NATO force would be "as broad as possible." Sources said that he told administration officials that while NATO doesn't need American help to come up with an adequate number of troops, U.S. participation would be helpful for political reasons. Other foreign policy experts criticized the administration's reluctance to get involved in Macedonia, a small nation that has served as a major logistical base for NATO forces in the Balkans. "We should be part of the force," said Richard C. Holbrooke, President Bill Clinton's frequent negotiator in the Balkans. "Because it is in our interests to do so and in our national interests to have stability in the Balkans, to have a strong NATO. If we start making rules limiting our own involvement, we're only inviting other countries to do the same and undermining the one for all and all for one principle at the core of NATO." Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) said that while the administration had become more willing to keep the United States active in the Balkans, it should be more forthcoming. "The bottom line is without U.S. forces on the ground as part of a NATO force, the likelihood of success is diminished significantly," said Biden, who with Sens. Richard C. Lugar (R-Ind.) and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) met with Robertson on Wednesday. "We're the only party truly trusted there." Biden added that U.S. presence in the mission to disarm ethnic Albanian guerrillas would reinforce Bush's message last week that the administration does not support rebel actions against the Macedonian government. "The Albanians think they have wider berth or latitude with us than they do . . . because we went to their rescue in Kosovo when they were being battered," Biden said. An administration official said that U.S. troops were already helping to cut supply lines of ethnic Albanian rebels in Macedonia, who over the past five months have moved from remote mountain villages to the suburbs of the country's capital, Skopje. He said that in the past three days, soldiers in KFOR, the NATO force in Kosovo, had detained 19 insurgent supporters. He said 12 of those had been detained by U.S. forces in KFOR. "The U.S. has been very clear in what it said to Albanians and Albanian extremists," the official said. Last week in Europe, Bush said NATO leaders "agreed we must face down extremists in Macedonia and elsewhere who seek to use violence to redraw borders or subvert the democratic process." The U.S. ambassador to Macedonia hosted Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski and other leaders for dinner Wednesday to discuss how to reach a political settlement, the official said. Some observers said the course of events over the past several month resembled the events that led to the deaths of tens of thousands of people in Bosnia before international intervention. After vowing to pull U.S. troops out of the Balkans as soon as possible, the Bush administration is now sending messages that it will not abandon the region. "When the hell are we going to learn?" Biden said. "The temporizing and prior to that the confusion over the first five months of this administration had enemy and ally alike confused about where the administration was coming down." An administration official said, however, that the United States and European nations were working more closely than they were 10 years ago on Bosnia, and that the disappearance of dictators in neighboring Balkan countries would make it easier to reach a settlement among the feuding Macedonian factions. � 2001 The Washington Post Company http://www.washingtonpost.com/ Miroslav Antic, http://www.antic.org/ ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
