[ALBSA-Info] Nations Look To Help in Yugoslavia

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

Nations Look To Help in Yugoslavia

By JEFFREY ULBRICH

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - Some Western nations, looking for a way to help the 
Yugoslav opposition oust President Slobodan Milosevic, want to resurrect the 
Balkans ``Contact Group'' to give diplomacy a shot in the arm, but diplomats 
say no progress can be made without Russia. 

So far, the Russians have balked at the idea of a Contact Group meeting, 
according to a Western diplomat who asked not to be identified. 

The Contact Group - the United States, Russia, France, Britain, Germany and 
Italy - was largely a tool of the Bosnian conflict and the post-Dayton 
agreement that ended the conflict there. It was also a means of coordinating 
policy during the Kosovo crisis. 

High-level consultations on the Yugoslav situation have been going on among 
the allies and efforts were under way Wednesday by Germany and other nations 
to arrange a meeting of the Contact Group to work out a way to end the crisis 
in Yugoslavia that followed the Sept. 24 elections. 

Challenger Vojislav Kostunica won the most votes. Kostunica claims victory, 
but Milosevic says he didn't win more than half the vote and must face a 
runoff. 

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was in Paris Wednesday, deeply 
immersed in trying to end the outbreak of bloodshed between Israel and the 
Palestinians, but she was expected to contact Russian Foreign Minister Igor 
Ivanov to try to enlist Moscow's help with Milosevic. 

Ivanov, who was in India Wednesday with President Vladimir Putin, said 
Putin's offer to meet with Milosevic and Kostunica still stands, according to 
the Interfax news agency. 

Such a meeting could be held at any time convenient to both parties and 
intensive consultations on this offer are underway, the agency quoted Ivanov 
as saying. 

However Kostunica appeared on Russia's government television Wednesday night, 
saying through an interpreter than he couldn't go to Moscow right now. 

``We are in a situation where it is difficult, I would say irresponsible, to 
leave the country,'' he said. 

The Russians agree there was fraud in the Yugoslav elections, but, as one 
diplomat put it, they are undecided about whether to help the West or leave 
Serbia as a thorn in the side of the allies. 

Moscow long was considered one of Yugoslavia's few friends in the world - a 
special Slavic relationship - but that relationship has cooled.