[ALBSA-Info] Russia: Milosevic Is Internal Matter

[Gazhebo at aol.com]

Russia: Milosevic Is Internal Matter

By JIM HEINTZ
  
MOSCOW (AP) - The Kremlin said Saturday that Yugoslavia's attempts to arrest 
former President Slobodan Milosevic are an internal affair and called on 
other countries to stay out of the controversy. 

``Any pressure from outside on the leadership of Yugoslavia in connection 
with these questions would not only be interference in the internal affairs 
of a sovereign state but could weaken the position of the democratic forces 
of the democratic forces of the country,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman 
Alexander Yakovenko told the ITAR-Tass news agency. 

Milosevic is wanted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal for alleged involvement 
in atrocities in the Serb province of Kosovo and has lived under police 
surveillance in a villa since he was ousted from power last fall in an 
uprising after he refused to accept defeat in elections. 

On Saturday, police tried to arrest Milosevic but were turned back by gunfire 
from the former president's personal guards. 

During his decade in power, which saw Yugoslavia collapse into a series of 
wards, Milosevic often had looked for support to Russia - like Yugoslavia a 
predominantly Slavic, Orthodox Christian country. 

Russia vehemently opposed the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, but 
resisted being drawn into the conflict or supplying advanced anti-aircraft 
systems to the Yugoslav army. 

And although Russia frequently criticized KFOR, the NATO-led peacekeeping 
force that entered Kosovo after the Yugoslav army withdrew in 1999, it 
waffled over Yugoslavia's political turmoil. 

President Vladimir Putin eventually sent a letter recognizing Milosevic 
opponent Vojislav Kostunica as the winner of the presidential election, a 
move that appeared to seal Milosevic's downfall. 

Yakovenko, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, said countries concerned about the 
Balkans, where ethnic Albanian rebels are fighting the Macedonian army just 
south of Yugoslavia, should ``unify their powers to work against sorties of 
international terrorism.'' 

``The most important element in these powers is the utmost strengthening and 
support of the current democratic leadership of Yugoslavia,'' he said. 

Ultranationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky meanwhile criticized the 
attempt to arrest Milosevic, saying ``there are no doubts a decision 
regarding oppression of the former Yugoslav president was made in the United 
States,'' the news agency Interfax said.