NATO ready for military action in Kosovo

ALSO: Chief Kosovo monitor visits shattered town

Serbs may soon face deadline

January 26, 1999
Web posted at: 1:04 p.m. EST (1804 GMT)

BONN, Germany (CNN) -- NATO warned Tuesday that "the military option will be used" in Kosovo if fighting between ethnic Albanian separatists and Serb security forces continues.

"Both sides must be made to understand that they've reached the limit," NATO Gen. Klaus Naumann, head of the alliance's military committee, told Germany's ZDF television.

Any airstrikes would be aimed "solely at military targets" to "cripple the military machine that is waging the campaign in Kosovo," Naumann said.

Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic began a crackdown on separatist ethnic Albanians in the southern Serbian province of Kosovo last February. A cease-fire agreement was reached in October, but some fighting has continued.

Goal: Interim settlement by end of February

Diplomats from the six-nation Balkans Contact Group have been struggling to find a resolution to the conflict, and reportedly were planning to meet Friday in Paris to demand that both sides begin negotiations for a peace settlement.

Western diplomats told Reuters that the ethnic Albanians and Serbs would have 10 days to begin direct peace talks, or face military action.

"There is a determination to get an interim political settlement agreed by the end of February, under the threat of military force if necessary," a senior NATO diplomat said. "The idea is a Dayton-styled lockup under incredible international pressure."

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, said Tuesday that the United States and its allies were "looking at a wide range of options" to settle the conflict. But officials traveling with Albright would not confirm that a Contact Group meeting would take place Friday.

"The Americans were a bit cautious on two grounds," said a Western diplomat on the condition of anonymity. "Firstly, they wanted the military threat to be very clear to Milosevic. Secondly, they were worried about the extent to which the Russians would come on board to a policy which would be a fast track to talks."

The diplomats said the meeting proposal calls for the two sides to hold face-to-fact negotiations, probably in Vienna, mediated by a team of envoys.

British junior Foreign Office Minister Tony Lloyd, meanwhile, said Tuesday that Britain was prepared to affirm the use of ground troops in Kosovo, if necessary, but added that he didn't believe military action was necessary to force compliance with last October's cease-fire agreement.

"We don't rule out any options," he said, "but it doesn't mean it's the direction we are heading."

Other news on the Kosovo front:

• Serb police said a Serbian man was shot and wounded early Tuesday by ethnic Albanian rebels near Istok.

  In a separate incident, an ethnic Albanian man was killed and his son was wounded late Monday in Luka. Police said the attack may have been waged by Albanian separatists, who were angry because the man turned a weapon over to authorities.

  The incidents took place following the discovery Monday of the bodies of five ethnic Albanian civilians shot dead as they returned from their fields.

• Chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor Louise Arbour is to get a visa to enter Yugoslavia, said Justice Minister Zoran Knezevic. But she won't be allowed to investigate any killings in Kosovo.

• Kosovo verification mission chief William Walker toured Malisevo, which was a rebel capital before it was overrun by Serbs last July. He said there was a reduced Serb police presence there, which he called a positive sign.

  Reuters contributed to this report.

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  Related stories: U.S. envoy in Kosovo launches new peace drive - January 25, 1999 Ethnic Albanians release Serb hostages - January 23, 1999

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