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March 1, 1999
Web posted at: 9:35 p.m. EST (0235 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is reaching out to former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole to help reach a peaceful settlement in Kosovo.

Dole is expected to meet ethnic Albanian leaders in Kosovo and may also call on Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade, State Department deputy spokesman James Foley said Monday.

"He is an eminent figure who has a lot of credibility with the Kosovar Albanians, because he's spoken out on their behalf over the years," Foley said.

"If he were to go to Belgrade, he is someone who has dealt with Mr. Milosevic previously and would speak on behalf of the United States in that regard," he added.

Dole, the 1996 Republican presidential nominee, was pressed into service when the Kosovars balked at signing a deal at peace talks in Rambouillet, France, last week. Details on his schedule and itinerary are still being worked out, Foley told reporters.

The announcement that Albright was bringing Dole into the peace process came on a day when there was little obvious progress in the bid to get the two sides to agree to the draft accord negotiated at Rambouillet last month.

In Belgrade, Milosevic's government reiterated its wholesale rejection of a crucial element of the accord: the use of international peacekeepers to enforce the pact.

"The position of the Yugoslav government is that no foreign troops are acceptable, regardless of conditions, structure or their mandate," Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic was quoted as saying in the Serbian media.

The United States bluntly warned Milosevic that NATO air power is still an option should Yugoslav-Serb forces "start to engage in massive assaults upon innocent villagers."

Members of the Kosovo Liberation Army handed over two Serbs, one of them dead, who had been missing since the weekend

"We've indicated to Mr. Milosevic that the ACTORD (NATO activation order) remains in effect, and to the extent that his forces launch any attack against innocent people, he is going to face action by NATO itself," Defense Secretary William Cohen said.

Thousands of Serb troops with tanks, artillery and armored vehicles are now massed on the Serb-Kosovar border in position to deliver punishing assaults on the Kosovars or swarm into Kosovo with little notice.

Leaders of the ethnic Albanians also have accepted in principle an administration invitation to attend talks with U.S. officials in Washington, Foley and other U.S. officials said.

There is no decision yet on when the talks would be held, Foley said.

In Pristina, Kosovo, the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army handed over two Serbs who had been missing since the weekend.

"The two were handed over. One is a body, the other is alive," a spokesman for the international verifiers overseeing a cease-fire in Kosovo said.

One of the men had been shot dead and the other was badly beaten, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said.

Also in Kosovo, at least 350 Kosovo Albanians driven from their homes by recent fighting in the Kacanik area of southern Kosovo sought shelter in a forest gully Monday. Up to 3,000 villagers were reported to have fled Kacanik, around 9 miles from the border, on Sunday after fighting broke out between government troops and guerrillas.

State Department Producer Ramona Schwartz, National Security Producer Chris Plante and Reuters contributed to this report.