Cyprus: Milosevic willing to free captured U.S. soldiers

From left, Ramirez, Stone and Gonzales

April 7, 1999
Web posted at: 7:23 a.m. EDT (1123 GMT)

NICOSIA, Cyprus (CNN) -- Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has offered to return three captured U.S. soldiers through Cyprus as a gesture of good will, the island's acting president told CNN Wednesday.

"I have indication that if all goes well, I will be able to bring the three American soldiers to Cyprus and to freedom," Spyros Kyprianou said in a telephone interview. "I will give them to anyone that President Clinton wants to send here to Cyprus or the ambassador or anybody else."

NATO officials said in Brussels they had no information about the offer.

The three soldiers were captured on March 31. NATO says they were noncombat troops under its command and were conducting a routine patrol along the Macedonia-Kosovo border.

Belgrade says they were captured on Yugoslav territory.

Kyprianou told reporters in Nicosia he would go to Belgrade on Wednesday afternoon.

"I am not saying the arrangements have been settled," he said. "It is a delicate mission and something could happen and things may not go smoothly. But based on the messages and information I have, if some preconditions are met the mission will succeed," Kyprianou said.

He did not mention what the preconditions were, but said that it was essential that a cease-fire hold for as long as he was in the Yugoslav capital.

"It is a humanitarian mission and has nothing to do with political negotiations or anything else for a political solution to the problem of Kosovo," he said.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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