Cohen meets U.S. troops at Aviano air base in Italy

June 19, 1999
Web posted at: 4:39 p.m. EDT (2039 GMT)

GNJILANE, Yugoslavia (CNN) -- U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen visited American troops in Kosovo on Saturday, hours after he and his Russian counterpart signed an agreement on Russia's role in the Balkans' latest peacekeeping force.

"The hard part begins now," Cohen told a company of Marines when his helicopter landed following a flight from Skopje, Macedonia. "Now you're here and a lot of people are glad. They know you're going to be tough and fair."

U.S. troops have fanned out over the sector of Kosovo assigned to them by the NATO peace plan, armed with a mission to keep the peace and disarm all elements.

Accompanied by NATO supreme commander Gen. Wesley Clark, Cohen flew over a suspected mass grave site in southeastern Kosovo before returning to Macedonia for a trip to a refugee camp. Before flying to the Balkans, the secretary visited American air crews at Aviano air base in Italy, where much of NATO's air campaign against Yugoslavia originated.

"There has never been a more precise application of air power, any place, any time on this entire globe," Cohen told members of the 31st Fighter Wing.

Cohen left Helsinki, Finland, earlier Saturday, where he and Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev had signed an accord allowing 3,600 Russian troops to serve in the NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR). Two Russian battalions are to serve in the American sector.

The U.S. Army and Marines have so far deployed about 3,300 troops into Kosovo, a number expected to reach 7,000 next month. The total number of NATO troops will be about 50,000.

U.S. President Bill Clinton is also scheduled to travel to the Balkans later this week after the completion of the G-8 summit in Germany. National Security Adviser Samuel Berger said Clinton would meet with Albanian and Macedonian leaders, and would visit a refugee camp in Macedonia. He does not plan to travel into Kosovo, Berger said.

Cohen's trip came as the U.N. war crimes tribunal sent advance teams into Kosovo to examine evidence of war crimes in the Serbian province.

Tribunal spokesman Paul Risley said that full teams, from the FBI and Scotland Yard, could begin their work by next week.

"But the process will take a long time," Risley said. "You've got to give us some time and some patience with this process."

Reuters contributed to this report.

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