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White House 'pleased' Russia ordering troops out of Kosovo
Ivanov calls entry into province 'unfortunate' mistakeJune 11, 1999 WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The White House said late Friday it was "pleased" after Russia's foreign minister said that the entry of Russian troops into Kosovo was an "unfortunate" mistake and that they would leave immediately. The news that Russian troops had entered Kosovo's provincial capital, Pristina, set off a flurry of activity among Clinton Administration officials who said they were "stunned" by the move. White House spokesman Joe Lockhart said that Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov was "pretty clear" in his assurances that the Russian troops had entered Kosovo by mistake. Lockhart added that U.S. officials are confident that the troops will soon withdrawal. A senior Pentagon official told CNN that the entry of some 200 troops into Pristina on trucks and armored personnel carriers was "militarily insignificant." However, the official cautioned that the unexpected move could pose political problems. Lockhart told CNN that the Russian government had given repeated assurances earlier Friday that its troops would not cross into Kosovo until Moscow reached an agreement with NATO about the precise role it would play in an international peacekeeping force. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott had returned to Moscow early Friday amid the first reports of Russian troop movements in Yugoslavia. The Russian troops -- based in Bosnia as part of an international peacekeeping force set up in 1995 after the war in Yugoslavia -- crossed over into the northern part of Serbia on Friday. President Bill Clinton said those first movements were no cause for alarm. "They were just prepositioning," Clinton said on PBS' "News Hour With Jim Lehrer." "I think they would like to play a major role, but they understand General Jackson is in charge," Clinton said, referring to NATO's Lt. Gen. Michael Jackson, who will command the international peacekeeping force in Kosovo. Russia -- which is not a member of the 19-nation NATO alliance -- has insisted it will not put its troops under NATO command, something NATO has demanded.
Clinton returned to Washington Friday after speaking to pilots and support personnel at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri. In a hangar at Whiteman -- home of the B-2 Stealth bombers that flew to Yugoslavia to hit Yugoslav command bunkers and air defenses -- Clinton spoke with one of the bat-winged aircraft as a backdrop. He accused Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic of exploiting ethnic and religious differences in the Balkans over the years, particularly the recent "ethnic cleansing" of Kosovars of Albanian descent. "He wasn't just calling people names," the president said. "This exploitation involved mass murder, mass rape, mass burning, mass destruction of religious and cultural institutions and personal property records -- an attempt to erase the very presence of a people from their land and to get rid of them dead or alive." "It was that which the B-2s from Whiteman flew to reverse," Clinton said. Milosevic accepted NATO's conditions for ending the 79-day air campaign because "you made him do it," the president told hundreds of Whiteman personnel, reservists and their families. The B-2s -- which made 30-hour, round-trip, nonstop missions to Yugoslavia -- were a staple in NATO's bombing arsenal. Using its stealth technology, the plane can evade enemy radar and deliver bombs with precision. Air Force officials estimated the bomber flew just 3 percent of all NATO sorties but accounted for 20 percent of all targets hit -- with little or no collateral damage. Brig. Gen. Leroy Barnidge, who commands the 509th Bomb Wing at Whiteman, presented Clinton with a cap showing the wing's official emblem. "When people see you (wearing that hat)," Barnidge joked to the president, "people will think you drive a B-2 to work." 'The horrors you are going to see'The U.S. peacekeepers were gathered in northern Macedonia, near the Kosovo border, at a staging area called Camp Able Sentry. They make up an initial U.S. "enabling" force that will set up a headquarters, clear land mines and escort ethnic Albanian refugees home. Albright visited the makeshift military camp Friday during a one-day visit to Macedonia. "I can't tell you how proud we all are of what you have done and what you are going to do," Albright told the U.S. peacekeepers. "The people you are going to be seeing and the country you are going to be freeing has gone through some dreadful times." "In fact," she said, "I don't even know all the horrors you are going to see." 'There are land mines'Later, Albright was cheered as she spoke to Kosovars living at the Stenkovic refugee camp, a tent city that is home to about 25,000 ethnic Albanians, many of them children. Albright counseled against vengeance when they return home, and said NATO's goal was a multi-ethnic democracy in Kosovo. But she also acknowledged the task was awesome and said many of the refugees may not be able to get home before the onset of winter. In a statement to hundreds of refugees crowded behind a rope, Albright said, "We want you to rebuild. We want you to go home. But be very careful. There are land mines." "All the world knows about your suffering, they know you want to go home and have a normal life," Albright said. "You will go home and be able to live a decent normal life and do it your way." Correspondents John King and David Ensor contributed to this report. RELATED STORIES: Clinton: 'Victory for a safer world' RELATED SITES: Related to this story:
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