Albright heads to France as Serbs blast Kosovo talks

February 12, 1999
Web posted at: 2:13 p.m. EST (1913 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright will travel to Rambouillet, France, on Saturday to assess the progress of talks between Serbs and ethnic Albanians on the future of Serbia's rebellious Kosovo province.

Albright will stay in France until Sunday night to "conduct an on-the-ground assessment of the negotiations," the State Department said.

In addition, foreign ministers from the Contact Group on the Balkans -- the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and Italy -- may meet to assess progress.

The talks outside Paris have lasted nearly a week, with no face-to-face meetings between Serb leaders and representatives of ethnic Albanians, who make up about 90 percent of Kosovo. NATO has threatened airstrikes on Serb targets if the two sides do not make peace.

Serbian President Milan Milutinovic criticized international mediators Friday for preventing direct negotiations between the two sides.

"Unfortunately, here in Rambouillet, there is no dialogue," Milutinovic said.

"So far, for six days already, there has not been a single meeting between the two delegations, because the representatives of the international community do not allow it," he said. "It's quite natural then to ask what was the purpose of coming to Rambouillet in the first place."

Milutinovic continues to insist that the ethnic Albanian delegation sign a pledge that Kosovo will remain part of what is left of Yugoslavia. But Albanians have been reluctant to give up a long-standing goal of independence for Kosovo, and are not likely to go along with his demand.

However, he said the Serbs were "not ready" to walk out.

In response, one of three mediators at the talks told The Associated Press: "They live in the same castle and they can talk to each other whenever they want."

Marines could lead Kosovo peacekeepers

Meanwhile, the United States could send as many as 2,200 Marines to Kosovo to oversee any peacekeeping mission, a Pentagon official said Friday.

The Marines, from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit based in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, are now aboard ships that are part of an Amphibious Ready Group in the Mediterranean. If necessary, they could move into Kosovo quickly, establishing a presence until more heavily armed Army units could be brought in from Germany.

Eventually, the military personnel would be part of a long- term NATO peacekeeping operation that could include up to 4,000 U.S. troops.

Unless a diplomatic solution is found to keep Kosovo province within Serbia, Bosnia might well break up into its ethnic parts, a U.N. official overseeing that country's 1995 peace settlement said Friday. The former Yugoslavia started breaking up in 1991.

"The whole solution since '91 (in Bosnia) was based on the nonviolability of the borders," said Jiri Dienstbier, the U.N. special rapporteur for the former Yugoslavia. "If this principle is not maintained with regard to Kosovo, then it will put in doubt this whole solution."

Dienstbier, a former Czech foreign minister, said both sides must be forced to reach an agreement on Kosovo -- and the accord must be backed up with ground troops.

Military Affairs Correspondent Jamie McIntyre and Reuters contributed to this report.

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