FOCUS-Yeltsin urges
Clinton to end Kosovo war
01:30 p.m Apr 19, 1999 Eastern
MOSCOW, April 19 (Reuters) -
Russian President Boris Yeltsin
pressed U.S. President Bill Clinton
during a telephone conversation on
Monday to halt NATO bombing
of Yugoslavia, the Kremlin said.
A spokeswoman said Yeltsin, on
the telephone for nearly an hour,
urged the ''quickest, immediate
halt to military action against
sovereign Yugoslavia'' as the best
solution to end the crisis in the
Balkans.
Yeltsin praised the results of talks
between Foreign Minister Igor
Ivanov and U.S. Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright in Oslo
last week when both vowed to
keep talking to close the
diplomatic gulf opened by
NATO's air campaign.
The Russian president supported a
return to the negotiating table to
draw up a ''political agreement
granting Kosovo wide autonomy
under the sovereignty and
territorial integrity of Yugoslavia,''
his press service said in a
statement.
It said the two leaders agreed that
refugees, ethnic Albanians and
Serbs who have fled the region,
should be returned to their homes
safely. Yeltsin emphasised their
return could only be achieved with
the involvement of Yugoslavia.
The Kremlin spokeswoman said
the two men began the
conversation shortly before 1400
GMT and ended it 50 minutes
later, an unusually long talk for
Yeltsin, 68, whose work has often
been limited by poor health in
recent years.
Earlier on Monday, Yeltsin said
Russia would not allow the West
to control Yugoslavia but, in a sign
of a compromise with NATO,
vowed no more Russian warships
would sail to the Adriatic Sea.
Yeltsin gave a foretaste of his
thoughts in televised comments
before the conversation.
''Bill Clinton hopes to win, he
hopes (Yugoslav President
Slobodan) Milosevic will
capitulate, give up the whole of
Yugoslavia, make it America's
protectorate,'' Yeltsin said. ''We
will not allow this. This is a
strategic place, the Balkans.''
Yet, in a more conciliatory vein,
the president said Russia was
ready to carry on acting as a
go-between and would not send
further warships to the Balkans
region.
Russia, which sternly opposes
NATO military action in
Yugoslavia, has sent a small
reconnaisance ship, the Liman, to
the Adriatic and has kept several
warships on standby.
Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited. |
