Speculation Over Milosevic - Rugova Meeting
BELGRADE, Apr. 02, 1999 -- (Reuters) Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and moderate ethnic Albanian political leader Ibrahim Rugova agreed at a surprise meeting on Thursday to seek a peaceful solution in Kosovo, Serbian state media said.
It was not immediately clear what practical effect such a pledge would have. Commitments to peaceful solutions have been made by both sides before but fighting went on regardless.
Government leaders in Albania were skeptical the meeting had really occurred, while Kosovo Albanian separatist guerrillas said Rugova would be guilty of treason if he had seen Milosevic.
Belgrade scored a propaganda coup at home and sent shivers through allied forces abroad when it announced the capture of three U.S. soldiers who became separated from a NATO reconnaissance mission along Macedonia's border with Kosovo. The three soldiers will face criminal proceedings before a Yugoslav military court on Friday, the state news agency Tanjug said. The U.S. government said any trial would be "ridiculous" and a violation of international law.
Air raid warning sirens blared anew in the Yugoslav capital Belgrade on Thursday night as NATO pressed on with air strikes meant to halt Serbian attacks on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. NATO missiles destroyed a major bridge over the Danube River at Novi Sad in northern Serbia early on Thursday. Shipping on Europe's longest waterway to and from the Black Sea was blocked as a result. Vienna-Belgrade train travel was also suspended.
Tanjug said NATO on Thursday also blasted a railway bridge southwest of Kosovo's regional capital Pristina, hit its airport and approach road again and dropped bombs near the Serb Orthodox patriarch's residence in Pec.
In Brussels, Secretary-General Javier Solana of NATO, which has been bombing Serbian forces and military industries since March 24 to stop attacks on Kosovo Albanians, said he suspected Rugova had met Milosevic under duress.
"President Slobodan Milosevic has received Dr Ibrahim Rugova in Belgrade. They discussed the problems in Kosovo. They came to a joint stand on a mutual commitment to a political process, and that problems can be resolved successfully and long-term only through political means," Serb television and radio said.
State television showed Milosevic and Rugova in the presidential palace sitting side by side and smiling as they spoke, followed by a document with their signatures.
Rugova, who led a decade-long campaign of passive resistance to Serbian rule, last met Milosevic in May to discuss how to end fighting between the security forces and separatist ethnic Albanian guerrillas. He was reported missing a few days ago in the Serbian blitz against separatist rebels and populated regions where they operate. But state television filmed him on Wednesday at home where he said he was under police protection.
On television on Wednesday night, Rugova appealed for an end to NATO bombings against Yugoslavia, which Western critics say has abjectly failed to end Serbian violence that has caused an ethnic Albanian exodus, and may even have worsened it.
Ethnic Albanian guerrillas who now command as much or more political stature in Kosovo than Rugova have declared the Paris peace process with the Serbs dead. Some officials among the Western powers who oversaw the talks tacitly agree.
Later on Thursday, Tanjug said ethnic Albanians who had just left Pristina were returning home in reaction to Rugova's re-emergence and call for fresh dialogue. Tanjug sought to distinguish him from separatist rebels. "They...who were forced to leave their homes under threats by Albanian terrorists (guerrillas) that they would be killed unless they became refugees...," it claimed. "Big credit for their return goes to Rugova's statement... Their return is further proof that Rugova still enjoys huge respect among Kosovo Albanians. It proves that Albanian terrorists are losing the support of their countrymen, who have realized that their crazy aims cannot be accomplished."
But Kosovo Albanians contacted from abroad said Rugova could not have met Milosevic willingly. "He was forced to go there after being threatened by police," said one Pristina man in a typical comment.
Renewed Serbian military attacks on Kosovo Albanian rebels and civilians after Milosevic rejected an international autonomy plan for Kosovo sparked the NATO bombing campaign. ( (c) 1999 Reuters)
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