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Russia President Boris Yeltsin says the conflict can be solved only through political means

March 25, 1999
Web posted at: 9:53 a.m. EST (1453 GMT)

MOSCOW (CNN) -- Russia and China, both permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, on Thursday condemned the NATO bombings in Yugoslavia and demanded a peaceful solution to the Kosovo crisis.

Moscow reacted angrily to the start of the NATO action on Wednesday, with President Boris Yeltsin appearing on television hours before the strikes began to appeal for the alliance to change its mind.

On Thursday, Yeltsin said of the strikes, "We have extreme measures in reserve...but we have decided not to use them. We are above that. On the moral level we are superior to the Americans."

Yeltsin called for a meeting in Moscow of the six-nation Balkan Contact Group on Yugoslavia to continue the search for peace in the Kosovo crisis.

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Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev -- whose forces are the remnants of the Soviet superpower that led the Warsaw Pact in the Cold War standoff with NATO -- kept up the criticism of the alliance. But he chose his words carefully.

"According to operational information obtained by the Russian Defense Ministry, NATO is preparing a ground operation to move a group of troops numbering 22,000 into Yugoslav territory from Macedonia," RIA news agency quoted him as saying.

NATO has consistently said it does not plan a ground attack, and NATO sources in Brussels swiftly denied Sergeyev's charge.

The alliance has some 12,000 troops in Macedonia to form the vanguard of a peacekeeping mission for the Yugoslav province of Kosovo, but only with Belgrade's formal agreement. Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has so far refused to agree.

China lashes out at NATO

Chinese state media accused Western powers of escalating the crisis by encouraging "terrorist" ethnic Albanians.

China's president and foreign minister, on separate visits to Europe, and its U.N. representative spoke out against the attacks.

The Foreign Ministry in Beijing also summoned reporters to its offices to issue a statement condemning the attacks.

"I am extremely concerned and worried," President Jiang Zemin said at a banquet Wednesday in Milan, Italy.

"We appeal for an immediate end to the airstrikes and to put the Kosovo issue back on the track of political solution," Jiang said in comments carried by China's government-run news agency, Xinhua.

The Arab League issued a statement Thursday, blaming Belgrade for the NATO airstrikes.

"These airstrikes came as a result of the practices of Serbian forces against Kosovo's (ethnic) Albanian residents and their refusal to sign the peace agreement signed by the (ethnic) Albanians" at the recent Paris peace talks.

Iraq condemned the NATO attacks.

Correspondents Mike Chinoy and Jill Dougherty, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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