NATO on crucial Belgrade mission

BELGRADE, OCT 25: NATO's two top military officials met with Yugoslav strongman Slobodan Milosevic to press him to comply fully by Tuesda...

BELGRADE, OCT 25: NATO’s two top military officials met with Yugoslav strongman Slobodan Milosevic to press him to comply fully by Tuesday with UN terms for halting eight months of violence in Kosovo.

The meeting was still going on as the United Nations Security Council in New York adopted a new resolution urging Yugoslavia to “comply fully and swiftly” with UN and NATO requirements for ending the Kosovo crisis. But at the insistence of Russia which threatened to veto the text otherwise, Resolution 1203 included no threat of recourse to force if Belgrade failed to comply by the time the latest NATO ultimatum runs out on October 27.

Chairman of the NATO military committee, German General Klaus Naumann, and Supreme Allied Commander for Europe, US General Wesley Clark, went into talks with Milosevic on Saturday after a meeting with Yugoslav military leaders. But by early Sunday there was still no news on the talks.

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The NATO generals were aiming to convince Milosevic to withdraw the bulk of his troops andspecial police forces from Kosovo before Tuesday.

Milosevic’s party issued a statement on Saturday that “all the elements of the accord” agreed on October 13 with US envoy Richard Holbrooke had been applied.

The agreement brokered by Holbrooke provided for an international verification mission in Kosovo, for talks between Belgrade and ethnic Albanian separatists and for unarmed observer flights across the Yugoslav province.