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To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (20597)	10/4/1998 4:32:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 116761

NATO Troops May Enforce A Kosovo Peace-Britain 03:21 p.m Oct 04, 1998 Eastern By Alan Wheatley LONDON (Reuters) - NATO would have to send troops to Kosovo to enforce any political settlement of the conflict between Serbia and the ethnic Albanian majority in the province, British Defense Secretary George Robertson said Sunday. It was one of the clearest acknowledgements yet by a senior Western politician that NATO's military planning for the Kosovo crisis is not limited to the threat of air strikes. ''It is conceivable that if (Yugoslav President) Slobodan Milosevic is involved in a genuine cease-fire -- and not just some cat-and-mouse tactic that he's been involved in before -- and there is a prospect of a political settlement on the ground, there clearly would have to be NATO troops to enforce it, or keep the peace,'' Robertson told BBC television. He said Serbian security forces had been withdrawing from battle zones in Kosovo, a province of Serbia within federal Yugoslavia, in an apparent attempt to avert the threat of NATO air attacks. But he said it remained to be seen whether the withdrawal would go far enough to put Milosevic in compliance with a September 23 U.N. Security Council resolution demanding that he cease military operations, take steps to avert a humanitarian disaster and open political talks with Kosovo's ethnic Albanians. The United States and Britain have led the way in threatening air strikes if Serbia does not comply. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is due to give his assessment Monday. ''What is clear is that Milosevic now recognizes that we mean business and that's why he's moving with such speed at the moment,'' Robertson said. ''He is acting in the face of the threat of force to back up the diplomatic process. But it still remains to be seen by how much he is responding and how long he's going to do it, because cat-and-mouse tactics are simply not acceptable. ''This time he can't get off the hook with cosmetic withdrawals to barracks,'' Robertson added. Two other senior British politicians agreed that any air strikes would have to be followed by the deployment of ground troops to enforce a political settlement or interim peace deal. But they said this would have to be with Milosevic's approval. ''The right option to use would be air power. It may well be that ground troops will be needed, but you can't have an opposed occupation of Kosovo. That is militarily impossible,'' Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown, a former soldier who visited Kosovo last week, told Sky Television News. Lord David Owen, a former European Union peace envoy for the region of old Yugoslavia, said he believed an intervention force was ''absolutely vital'' but agreed with Ashdown that it would have to be accepted by the Serbian government. ''If they won't accept it, then you will have to take military action until they do. But I don't think there's any doubt in my mind that if you do air strikes, it will have to be followed up with troops on the ground and we must be aware of that,'' Owen, a former British foreign minister, told Sky. Prime Minister Tony Blair will chair a special meeting of his cabinet's defense committee Monday to discuss Kosovo before he leaves for an official visit to China. Hundreds of people gathered in London's Trafalgar Square Sunday to call for an end to Serbian attacks in Kosovo, and heard speeches by such human rights campaigners as actress Vanessa Redgrave and Bianca Jagger, former wife of the Rolling Stone Mick. ''Serbia has no right, under either national or international law, to Kosovo,'' Redgrave told the demonstrators, some of whom waved banners declaring ''Independence (for Kosovo) is the Only Solution.'' Jagger called for Milosevic to be indicted for war crimes. However, Robertson and other Western leaders have emphasized that they do not see independence for Kosovo but want a political settlement that ends the violence. Robertson refused to comment directly on a report in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper that Britain was considering sending rapid reaction troops with tank units to Kosovo if NATO bombs Serbian forces. But he added: ''I think you can take it that a whole series of options have been worked through and that we're ready to move on them.'' The Telegraph said ''several thousand'' Royal Marines were undergoing specialized training for a ''hazardous peace enforcement mission'' and had been placed on immediate standby. Robertson said: ''The NATO forces that are being assembled, the military options that are now ready, are all designed to make sure that there is a permanent peace in that area and that the disproportionate violence that has been used against civilians is going to stop.'' Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited