Signs of Hope Seen for Diplomatic Deal in Kosovo

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia —  Amid indications of progress toward a diplomatic settlement, U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke held lengthy meetings Friday with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic aimed at ending the impasse over the crisis in Serbia’s breakaway Kosovo province.

With the clock still ticking toward threatened NATO airstrikes, the atmosphere around the talks remained tense.

In terse comments after late-night talks, Holbrooke said he “will not characterize” the negotiations “in any way, except to say that they’re serious discussions, and the situation is serious.”

But Milosevic’s office issued a statement Friday voicing confidence that a deal will be struck, and negotiators spent some time looking beyond the next few days toward the question of a broader political settlement between Milosevic and the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo, where hundreds have died since his crackdown on separatist guerrillas began in February.

A day earlier, the United States and its key allies issued a six-point ultimatum to Milosevic--including a demand that he end all military operations in the province--which Holbrooke carried to this capital city as the basis for this latest round of talks.

In sending Holbrooke back to Belgrade for his fourth day of talks this week, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had warned that “time is all but gone.”

But the statement issued Friday by Milosevic’s office was fairly upbeat, declaring: “President Milosevic expressed the conviction that arguments which absolutely confirm the positive development of the situation in Kosovo will prevail over warlike intentions and that the political process which Yugoslavia has long been striving for will finally prevail.”

In another possible sign of hope in the talks, the U.S. delegation for the first meeting with Milosevic on Friday included James O’Brien, a State Department lawyer closely involved in drawing up a U.S. proposal for an interim agreement that would give Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority a high degree of self-rule.

The U.S. ambassador to Macedonia, Christopher Hill, who also was in Belgrade on Friday, has been shuttling between the Serbian and ethnic Albanian sides for several weeks refining the proposal.

Although face-to-face negotiations between the two sides have not even begun, a fairly detailed plan already has taken shape. If both sides approve a political deal, it is expected that an international military presence will be needed in Kosovo to monitor and police it.

Holbrooke said he will join the shuttle diplomacy today with a trip to Pristina, Kosovo’s provincial capital.

“We will leave for Pristina in the morning to see . . . members of the Albanian political leadership,” Holbrooke said. “We will be back here tomorrow afternoon to continue our discussion with President Milosevic.”

Meanwhile, Gen. Wesley Clark, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s top commander, issued a fresh warning Friday to Milosevic.

“The whole world is asking: ‘Why would a single man want to risk the ravages of armed conflict and the destruction of his own country in order to maintain a regime of repression which has turned a political problem into a severe and growing humanitarian tragedy?’ ” Clark said.

Before meeting Milosevic, Holbrooke said that “NATO continues intensifying planning and preparation for action, and we’re continuing an intensifying diplomatic effort to see if that’s going to be necessary or not.”

The ultimatum delivered by Holbrooke demanded that Milosevic end offensive military operations in Kosovo, withdraw forces that were sent into the province to put down ethnic Albanian separatists, allow international humanitarian organizations to operate freely in the province, cooperate with the international war crimes tribunal, facilitate the return of people displaced from their homes and start negotiations with the ethnic Albanian community on autonomy for the province.

In Kosovo, ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova reiterated that his long-term goal is not just autonomy.

“The best solution is independence, with guarantees for local [Kosovo] Serbs, in some kind of international protectorate,” Rugova told a news conference.

In other developments Friday:

* The government of Serbia, one of the two constituent republics of Yugoslavia, issued a decree setting out emergency rules for supply of consumer goods. It threatened punishment of anyone who hid or limited the sale of goods or sold them at higher than set prices.

Belgrade has been hit in recent days by panic buying of staple foods and other goods, and diesel fuel has become difficult to buy.

The Serbian government also warned Yugoslav media that they risked being shut down if they issued reports that spread “fear, panic or defeatism.”

* In London, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said NATO was planning “successive coordinated attacks” against Yugoslavia.

* In Paris, French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine told a parliamentary commission that if it comes, the first strike will be relatively small, followed by a pause for more negotiations.

* In Moscow, a Kremlin spokesman quoted Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin as repeating opposition to NATO strikes and declaring that “Russia firmly insists on political settlement of the Kosovo problem.”