March 31
- President Yeltsin has confirmed
Russia's readiness to work towards putting an end to NATO's bombardments
of Yugoslavia and resolve the crisis by negotiation. Mr.Yeltsin made the
announcement as he was speaking over the phone with Prime-Minister Yevgeny
Primakov who was on his way back to Moscow after visiting Belgrade and
Bonn. Following his meetings with the Yugoslav President Slobodan Miloshevic
and the German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder Mr.Primakov said Belgrade had
sent a signal which could be regarded as the one for NATO to stop its air
raids. The prime-minister said that negotiations in Bonn, however, had
testified to NATO's concerted policy of continuing the military action
against Yugoslavia. He warned that a decision of this kind would only worsen
the situation both in the Balkans and elsewhere in the world. According
to Mr.Primakov, western news media reports justify the aggression against
Yugoslavia by referring to what they call genocide in Kosovo. However,
Mr.Primakov pointed out, the UN High Commissioner for Refugee Agency says
one tenth of the population of Kosovo have fled the province in the past
week because of NATO's air raids. Russia, he said, would continue efforts
to stop what it describes as the unintelligent and tragic action against
Yugoslavia.
- NATO forces have resumed air raids
against Yugoslavia following Tuesday's lull in connection with Mr.Primakov's
visit. The rockets hit Belgrade's suburbs and an area around Kosovo's capital
Pristina. The NATO Council decided on Tuesday to expand the bombardments
to cover the whole of Yugoslavia targeting both major military facilities
and separate tanks, armoured personnel carriers, artillery pieces and communications
centres. 4 NATO planes are reported to have been shot down in the past
24 hours. Though the planes' wreckage is regularly shown on TV, NATO's
military command continues to insist that they returned to their bases.
- NATO is reported to be using outlawed
cassette bombs in Yugoslavia. Fragments of the bombs were shown by Belgrade
television on Wednesday. The bombs were used against two Kosovo villages
populated by Serbs. There were no military facilities in the area.
- NATO's cruise missile fired against
Yugoslavia strayed into neighbouring Macedonia last night and exploded
30 kilometres from the capital Skopie. The missile hit a shed forming a
3-metre deep crater. The incident took place in a sparsely-populated district.
No casualties have been reported. This is for the second time that a NATO
missile has fallen on the territory of a neighbouring nation. Last week
a similar missile went down in Bulgaria.
- The majority of Italy's citizens
oppose NATO's aggression in Yugoslavia. According to a survey conducted
by the Datamedia sociological service, 49.8 percent of Italians are against
NATO's intervention in the Balkans wheareas more than 46 percent support
it.
- The US hag apparently pressed its
West European NATO allies into rejecting peace overtures brought by the
Russian Prima Minister Yevgeni Primakov from a meeting with the Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic on Tuesday afternoon. Reports from London
and Bonn suggest Britain and Germany are unwilling to build any future
peace talks on Milosevic's offers of provisions for the safe return of
all refugees to Kosovo and a smaller Serbian military deployment there.
NATO also turns down demands by Yugoslavia to withdraw support from the
armed ethnic Albanian separatists who are using the NATO air raids as a
smokescreen to step up their campaign of violence in the southern Serbian
province.
- NATO's bombings have caused massive
loss of civilian life in Kosovo and triggered a mass exodus from the region.
Ignoring protests everywhere in the world and offers of mediation from
Russia, NATO has put Europe on a road to a disaster. Responsibility for
the consequences rests with those who have dared to try to impose their
vision of world order on others. History teaches proponents of such ambitions
usually come to a bad and.
- Prime Minister Primakov says this
country will continue to press ahead with its effort to secure a peaceful
solution to the crisis over Kosovo. He was speaking in Bonn after emerging
from talks with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to whom he had brought a conditional
offer from the Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic of a return to the
negotiating table once NATO has called off its air assault on Yugoslavia.
Chancellor Schroeder, Mr Primakov said, had told him that Milosevic's proposals
cannot serve to hammer out a meaningful solution for Kosovo. Primakov himself
believed those proposals formed a good foundation to build upon in the
settlement process. He also promised further mediation effort by this country.
Trying to solve the Kosovo problem by force is a road to nowhere and may
throw the world back to the times of the Cold War, he said.
- "That Mr.Primakov managed
to make President Miloshevic slightly move away from his tough stance marks
a huge success of the Russian prime-minister's mission". The opinion
comes from the First Deputy Speaker of the lower house of the Russian parliament
Boris Kuznetsov. Commenting on the results of Mr.Primakov's visit to Belgrade
and Bonn Mr.Kuznetsov told the RIA Novosti news agency that the short-term
visit had been energetic and dynamic. According to Mr.Kuznetsov, the proposals
to overcome the crisis put forward by the Russian prime-minister must be
discussed by both sides. Western nations, he said, have now refused to
implement Mr.Primakov's proposals but will have to return to them sooner
or later in view of the fact that the search for a way-out of the crisis
is to be continued.
- Foreign Minister Ivanov believes
the NATO bombardment of Federal Yugoslavia has seriously complicated the
search for a solution to the Kosovo crisis and the government of Germany
fully realizes this fact. He said this in Bonn late on Tuesday at a joint
news conference with Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov. By trying to instantly
solve the problem by the use of force, Mr Ivanov said, NATO has sent down
the drain the results of months of difficult negotiations on Kosovo. He
said there can be no magic solution to the Kosovo crisis and the only way
ahead lies through careful mediation diplomacy started by the mission of
Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov.
- According to the TANUYG news agency,
NATO planes again bombed Yugoslavia last night. There were at least seven
explosions in the outskirts of the administrative center of the Kosovo
province. Three cruise missiles hit a place near the Gracanica monastery,
south-east of Pristina. There were air strikes also of the population center
of Niva Badivac, Sushitsa and Livadie. Nothing has been reported about
casualties.
- The Ukranian President Leonid Kutchma
welcomes the Belgrade peace mission by Mr Primakov. He told this to reporters
in the Slovenian capital Liubljana on Tuesday after completing talks with
his hosting counterpart Milan Kuchan. The negotiations were dominated by
the crisis over Kosovo. According to Mr Kutchma, the sides stated shared
determination to end war in Yugoslavia and help resume peace talks on Kosovo.
- The situation in the wake of the
NATO aggression in the Balkans came under discussion between President
Boris Yeltsin and his colleague in Byelorussia Alexander Lukashenko when
they held a brief telephone exchange late on Tuesday. The two leaders denounced
the American-led assault on Yugoslavia as violating international law and
posing serious threats to global stability.
- The political leader of the outlawed
Kosovo Liberation Army Hashim Tachi told French television on Tuesday his
followers would never accept a compromise with Slobodan Milosevic. He urged
NATO to step up its air assault on Yugoslavia and move ground troops to
Kosovo.
- The Vatican has outlined its stand
on a settlement of the Kosovo crisis. When meeting with the ambassadors
of the NATO countries and of member-countries of the UN Security Council
on Tuesday evening, the foreign minister of the Vatican, monseigneur Jean-Louis
Toran, stressed the need to end NATO's military operations in Yugoslavia
and draw the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe into the peace process. He said also that urgent humanitarian
aid should be given to the refugees and displaced persons.
March 30
- A Russian and Yugoslav delegations
have ended their talks on Belgrade on a settlement in Kosovo in the wake
of NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia. Speaking after the talks, the
head of the Russian delegation Yevgeni Primakov, who arrived in Belgrade
on Tuesday morning, said certain results had been achieved, but did not
elaborate. He described his meeting with Slobodan Milosevic as fruitful.
The talks attended by Serbian President Milan Milutinovic, defense and
foreign ministers, and a number of other officials from both countries,
lasted more than six hours, four hours more than initially planned. Right
after the meeting Mr Primakov left for Bonn under an agreement reached
during a telephone conversation with German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
Earlier Itar-Tass reported with reference to government sources in Moscow
that after talks with Mr Schroeder in Bonn, the Russian Premier would probably
fly out to Brussels for a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana.
- President Yeltsin has submitted
his 6th annual address to both houses of the Russian parliament. Mr.Yeltsin
began his speech with the situation in Yugoslavia. He said the continuing
NATO air strikes are carried out bypassing the United Nations Security
Council and its charter and contrary to common sense. Both the lives of
people and the principles of international law were under threat, the president
said. The crisis in the Balkans, he said, demands action, not emotions.
Russia, the president said, would not tolerate being drawn into the conflict.
Mr.Yeltsin said, however, that his country is doing all it can to put an
end to military operations.
- Prime Minister Primakov led a high-ranking
Russian delegation to Belgrade this morning. Together with Foreign Minister
Igor Ivanov and Defence Minister Marshal Sergeyev, he talked with the Yugoslav
President Slobodan Milosevic and the Serbian President Milan Milutinovic.
At the airport, he said he had instructions from President Yeltsin to find
a way to revive diplomacy to resolve the crisis over Kosovo. From Belgrade,
Mr Primakov is taking his mission to Bonn, where he will talk with his
German counterpart Gerhard Schroeder, and probably also to Brussels, where
the agency ITAR-TASS expects him to hold emergency consultations with NATO
Secretary General Javier Solana.
- The Yugoslav Ambassador in Moscow
Borislav Milosevic says NATO must stop its bombardments before his country
can return to the negotiating table. He told reporters today he expected
positive results from the Belgrade visit by Mr Primakov but said it's mostly
up to NATO to switch the crisis into the diplomatic vein. The Ambassador
believed there is still room for diplomacy in attempts to resolve the row
over Kosovo. Referring to yesterday's visit to Belgrade by retired Russian
ministers Gaydar, Nemtzov and Fyodorov, he dismissed it as a purely private
enterprise.
- Reports say the Pentagon is sending
20 more warplanes to bases in Europe. The reinforcement includes 5 B-1
strategic bombers. It's expected to join the NATO force ravaging Federal
Yugoslavia.
- According to Greek television,
the NATO force in Macedonia just south of Kosovo has intensified target
practice ahead of an expected invasion of Federal Yugoslavia. The contingent
is deployed close the Yugoslav border in a manner suggestive of an imminent
attack. It comprises 12 thousand men, dozens of tanks and many hundred
artillery pieces.
- According to the Russian military
chief of staff General Kvashnin, the Yugoslav armed forces have lost between
50 and 100 men since the start of the NATO aggression, whereas the civilian
death toll has climbed to around 1000. The Yugoslav military says it has
brought down 8 NATO planes and 30 cruise missiles. It puts its own losses
in the air at 7 or 8 planes.
- Yugoslavia has instructed all its
male nationals aged between 18 and 60 to stay put until further notice.
The order is seen as part of preparations for a general call-up.
- Of the nearly 500 thousand Kosovo
people who had abandoned their houses and farms by the start of the assault
on Yugoslavia last Wednesday, nearly 100 thousand have already fled the
region for fear of NATO bombs. Spokesman for the UN refugees office Chris
Yanovski gave the figures at a news conference in Geneva today. The Austrian
daily KOURIER meanwhile warns of an imminent influx of Kosovo refuges to
Western Europe unless NATO stops to breed misery by dropping bombs.
- Prime-minister Yevgeny Primakov
has, on instructions from President Yeltsin, left Moscow for Belgrade where
he will hold talks with the Yugoslav leaders. Russia condemns the NATO
aggression against Yugoslavia and is doing its best for an end to the war
action and more efforts to find a negotiated solution to the Kosovo crisis.
Prime-minister Primakov is accompanied by foreign minister Igor Ivanov
and defence minister Igor Sergeyev. President Yeltsin's press secretary
Dmitry Yakushkin says the Russian emissaries will be trying to find the
way to a non-violent solution. The departure time was set, according to
Yakushkin, in agreement with what many different services had to say on
the matter so as to insure the safety of Primakov's flight over the conflict
area. Primakov is planning to leave for Bonn after talks in Belgrade. An
appropriate agreement was reached in the course of a telephone conversation
between him and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Primakov held another
telephone conversation, Monday, with French President Jaques Chirac.
- President Yeltsin is addressing
today the two-house national legislature, in the Marble Hall of the Moscow
Kremlin. The national news agency ITAR-TASS says Boris Yeltsin has, for
the past two days, been polishing the foreign policy part of the address,
to be better able to share with the lawmakers his view of the latest developments
in Europe, in particular in and around Yugoslavia. Yeltsin will be expected
to present an in-depth analysis of last year domestic developments especially
Russian projection into next century. He will focus on this year's parliamentary
elections. Then, right after the address, Boris Yeltsin, and the speakers
of the two houses of the Russian legislature will meet to discuss what
all the branches of power must do now that the North Atlantic Alliance
is taking combat action against Yugoslavia.
- Many pin their hopes for scaling
down the Kosovo conflict and the resumption of political negotiations on
Prime-minister Primakov's visit to Belgrade. Media editions feel that more
war action spells out serious repercussions for every participant in the
conflict. A spokesman for the United States Department of State said Washington
took a positive view of the new Russian initiative. Secretary Albright
held, over the past 24 hours, two telephone conversations with her Russian
counterpart Igor Ivanov. Washington hopes, the same spokesman said, Russia
would be able to do what the other mediators had failed to do, for a solution
in Kosovo.
- NATO planes dropped two bombs,
Monday night, on Kosovo's capital city of Pristina. Sounds of an air alert
woke up Belgrade although, the Yugoslav news agency says, only the Batainice
airdrome came under attack. Serbian television says one NATO plane was
downed over Montenegro . Earlier, the commander of the Yugoslav antiaircraft
defence system said seven enemy planes had been destroyed. The North Atlantic
Alliance admits the loss of one plane.
- The United States keeps sending
different kinds of aircraft to Europe. The US-made planes will be field-tested
in the Balkans. The French news agency has quoted Washington-based military
sources as saying the test Monday. Five B-1 bombers will also be committed
to action in Yugoslavia. Russian defence minister Igor Sergeyev in the
meantime, said in Moscow that the Allied bombing raids had claimed 1000
civilian lives. About 100 serviceman had been killed.
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