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Yesterday I noted that it was a time for caution, not for celebration.
And I think that that caution should continue today. We very much welcome
what the Serb parliament did yesterday, but so far, we have not seen
the withdrawal of one Serb soldier from Kosovo.
And a series of very difficult discussions are underway to prepare the
way for the next stages under the -- what we hope will be a secure,
verifiable peace agreement. The most important is that there will be
a meeting tomorrow, as NATO has already announced, between Serb military
authorities and NATO military authorities to work out the schedule for
a withdrawal. And the general plan is that as we have verified firm
evidence that withdrawal is underway, and after withdrawal has gone
on for an appropriate period of time, the NATO forces will begin to
move into Kosovo. If there is a verified and firm withdrawal. Until
that happens, NATO will continue and is continuing its air operations.
And last night, the last 24 hours, we hit a variety of targets that
you can see, a total of 51 targets, including 20 -- 35 fielded forces.
We concentrated almost entirely on military targets over the last 24
hours, as you can see.
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Q Can you give us a better idea of what it is that Michael Jackson
is going to be laying down for the Serbs? Is he asking them: Can you
please get out? Is he emphatically telling them: Here is what you're
going to do. Here is the schedule, here are the roads.
Can you walk us through what you know?
MR. BACON: Sure. He will basically present a fairly detailed withdrawal
schedule, and we will have benchmarks for meeting that schedule. And
at some appropriate time, NATO will, if the withdrawal begins, and as
I say it has not begun yet; but if the withdrawal begins, at some appropriate
time NATO will take a snapshot and look at the progress of the withdrawal
and gauge whether enough withdrawal has taken place to show seriousness
on the part of the Serb forces, both the army and the special police,
as well as the paramilitaries; and at that time make a decision to suspend
the bombing. But there will have to be some significant and verified
withdrawal before NATO makes that decision.
***
Q If the Serbs do agree to follow the NATO time table and everything
proceeds according to plan, roughly how long might it be in that circumstance
before you can halt the bombing? Can you at least give us some kind
of a ball park idea, if Serbia cooperates?
MR. BACON: If Serbia cooperates, I think the bombing could be halted
by the end of the weekend or very early next week, if they were to start
to cooperate tomorrow.
The meeting is scheduled for 9:00 a.m., Yugoslav time, tomorrow. And
depending on how long the meeting lasts and how serious the Serbs are
about acting on this peace agreement and ending the bombing of their
country, it could -- I think we could have enough movement in two days
or so.
But it could take much longer than that. It could be four days; it could
be longer. And a lot will depend on how quickly the Serbs are willing
to act on the agreement that their parliament has already accepted.
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