A POSSIBLE PEACE

	June 3, 1999
	Full coverage of Serbia's vote to accept a European peace plan and extended excerpts from the lead negotiator, Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari.

JIM LEHRER: Yugoslavia accepted a Kosovo peace offer today, the 72nd day of NATO's air war against it. The announcement came from Belgrade after two days of talks between Yugoslav President Milosevic and Russian and Finnish diplomats. They had presented a plan to end the NATO bombing and return Kosovar refugees to their homes. Kwame Holman has our summary of the day's Yugoslavia-Kosovo developments. KWAME HOLMAN: Minutes before Russian envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin and Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari met with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic today, air raid sirens blared in Belgrade warning of possible NATO bombing. Despite the possibility of peace, NATO planes struck targets in Yugoslavia and Kosovo last night. Explosions could be heard in the background as Ahtisaari met with reporters after his first meeting with Milosevic. PRESIDENT MARTTI AHTISAARI, Finland: We have just finished our discussions with our Yugoslav hosts. We have been informed that the federal government and the parliament have approved the plan, peace offer, that we made yesterday. KWAME HOLMAN: The Serb parliament, which convened today for the first time since NATO bombing began March 24, approved a peace deal by a vote of 136-74. Vuk Draskovic is a member of the parliament and former deputy prime minister. VUK DRASKOVIC: Today the parliament of the republic of Serbia accepted completely the document, the common document delivered to President Milosevic yesterday by Mr. Ahtisaari and Mr. Chernomyrdin. The Serbian parliament today declared the peace. According to the document we accepted today, our state forces start retreating from Kosovo, the bombarding would be stopped. KWAME HOLMAN: Serb media said the accord calls for an end to the violence in Kosovo, a verifiable withdrawal of Serb troops from Kosovo within seven days, deployment of an international security force there acting under United Nations' authority with essential NATO participation, safe and free return of all refugees, and the establishment of an interim administration for Kosovo and a political process that leads to autonomy for the province. The proposed agreement also stipulates that Yugoslavia maintain its sovereignty, and calls for demilitarization of the Kosovo Liberation Army. In Washington this afternoon, President Clinton was not ready to declare the Kosovo conflict over. PRESIDENT CLINTON: As you know, we have been working closely with President Ahtisaari and Mr. Chernomyrdin to try to achieve an agreement that would allow the refugees to go home with security, safety, and self- government. Movement by the Serbian leadership to accept these conditions established by NATO and the international community is of course welcome. But based on our past experience, we must also be cautious. First, we must have clarity that the Serbian leadership has fully accepted these conditions and intends to fully implement them. Until then, and until Serb forces begin a verifiable withdrawal from Kosovo, we will continue to pursue diplomacy, but we will also continue the military effort that has brought us to this point. In a few moments, I will meet with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to speak about the progress of our campaign and our planning for the force that would enter Kosovo when NATO's conditions are met. NATO and our military have been working hard to ensure that we can sustain our campaign and deploy KFOR quickly and effectively when that is necessary. We have worked to ensure that we can do this while maintaining our overall military posture around the world. KWAME HOLMAN: At the meeting of European Union leaders in Cologne, Germany, today, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said he was encouraged by the Serb parliament's vote, but warned that Belgrade must accept NATO's specific demands. TONY BLAIR: Obviously if this news is correct and the Serbian parliament and Milosevic's regime have accepted these terms, then that really is progress, and we must make it clear, however, that it's the acceptance of all the terms -- those terms aren't negotiable. They're there, they're set out, they're in full, and they have all to be accepted, and they have to be backed up by action. KWAME HOLMAN: Meanwhile, Viktor Chernomyrdin, the man chosen by Russian President Boris Yeltsin to help broker peace, arrived back in Moscow to face criticism that he had encouraged Belgrade to bow to NATO's demands. Chernomyrdin told reporters Russian troops would be part of an eventual peacekeeping force, but would not take orders from NATO. VIKTOR CHERNOMYRDIN: (Translated) The NATO troops will form part of the international peacekeeping force. Also there will be the troops from neutral countries and, on the special request from Yugoslav authorities, there will be the Russian contingent. All NATO troops will be under the NATO authority. I can't say anything about neutral countries. That is the business of their leaders. But when it comes to the Russian contingent, it will be taking orders from Russia and only from Russia. KWAME HOLMAN: And speaking from California, where he was preparing to give a speech to the World Affairs Council, the Yugoslav Ambassador to the United Nations said the proposed peace deal was a compromise which protected Yugoslavia's interests. AMBASSADOR VLADISLAV JOVANOVIC: What matters most is that our sovereignty and territorial integrity be respected without any attempt to affect it, or to reduce it and that the peace be restored. KWAME HOLMAN: Seventy-two days of bombing have inflicted vast damage on Yugoslavia. NATO said today it estimates 5,0000 Serb military personnel have been killed, 10,000 wounded in the conflict. NATO said 20,000 alliance soldiers stationed in Macedonia and Albania are prepared to move into Kosovo to enforce a peace agreement within 48 hours of a cease-fire. Refugees in the camps along the Kosovo border got the news of pending peace from reporters today. Many were skeptical about an end to the conflict and about when they finally could return home. REFUGEE: (Translated) Maybe the Serb parliament has accepted this peace plan but I won't believe it until the Kosovo Albanian parliament accepts it. Also, this plan is not good for us Albanians or for NATO. I think this plan is destined for failure. REFUGEE: This is very good news for Kosovar people. Maybe when this war is all finished, I will come back to my home and to my country Kosovo. REFUGEE: (Translated) Every time that Milosevic has agreed to something like this, we end up in a situation like we are in now. We like the fact that he is agreeing for us to go back into Kosovo but the problem is we don't have anything to go back to anymore. KWAME HOLMAN: Senior diplomats from the group of eight industrial nations are expected to meet tonight in Germany to draft a United Nations resolution to authorize a peacekeeping force to go into Kosovo. Meanwhile, Finnish President Ahtisaari arrived in Cologne to cheers and a smiling German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Ahtisaari then spoke about to reporters about his trip to Belgrade. PRESIDENT MARTTI AHTISAARI: I presented, when we met last night, the document, which is two pages long, and read it through. I later on gave it to Mr. Milosevic. This is a document that we could in the trilateral discussion, agree between the delegations of Mr. Chernomyrdin, Mr. Talbott and myself. And what was good in the document was that it had everything there, if agreed, could start a process, would be a first step, but it could lead to a process after verifiable withdrawal of all armed forces of Yugoslavia police and paramilitary from Kosovo in an agreed timetable and properly verified fairly soon, when that process started, it could lead to the suspension of war activities -- in other words, pause in the bombing. My role was to answer questions on this document. And there were plenty of them. And I tried to do my best to clarify the contents of the paper. When I was asked whether it would be possible for them to suggest improvements, I had to say in no uncertain terms that I or Mr. Chernomyrdin, didn't have any authority to negotiate this paper. It was the best offer, and I had to be very candid and say so last night, that it was the best offer that the international community was in a position to make. And I think it was understood in our discussions. They knew that the Yugoslav leadership was taking this matter to the parliament for approval, the parliament meeting started around -- it was supposed to start at 10:30. It was a closed session, and we were warned that we would meet again around 1:00 o'clock. We met actually at ten past 1:00 this afternoon. I was in that meeting told that the Yugoslavia accepted the peace document I brought to Belgrade and that the session of parliament had also approved the document. And I was told that the same had taken place in the federal government meeting, the same morning. I think it was recognized that this was the first step in building peace. What follows from here now is that I hope that today there are contacts between the military leadership in Yugoslavia and NATO military setup in order to agree on the details that have been spelled out here, get the withdrawal process agreed, get it verified so that we can come to the suspension of military activity, as has been indicated. Bear with me -- if I am not jumping here with enthusiasm -- because there's a lot of hard work that needs to be done, as I have explained, a lot of issues still among the contributing governments to the international security presence carried out so that we can take care of the sensitivities of those that require that. But I believe that, as I said, that the first step in building peace has been made. PETER NORMAN, Financial Times: Peter Norman from the Financial Times. I'm still a bit unclear how long it'll be before the hostilities end. I wonder if you can give us your estimate of that, and secondly, does the indictment of Mr. Milosevic as a war criminal complicate matters, and if so, how? PRESIDENT MARTTI AHTISAARI: No. In theory, if there was an agreement tomorrow, I think one could expect that tomorrow-- tomorrow is Friday, I assume. Yes. I'm losing track of the days. So if -- much depends -- it's very difficult to give you a precise answer, but it would be in days and very few days, that I understand that the suspension of the war activities, in other words, the pause in the bombing, would take place. So you can calculate yourself. I'm in no position to say whether it's one day or two days or three days. But it's a very short period of time. One wants to be absolutely sure that it happens what has been agreed upon -- but not the whole process. I have no way of -- I think you better make the judgment call yourself, that the matter never came up in our discussions. No one referred to it. Let's put it that way, that I was positively surprised that during one trip, we could get the clear position. Of course I say that the proof of the pudding is in eating. And my own experience makes me very careful in approaching these issues, but I was mentally prepared to -- that I had to travel perhaps more than once there. REPORTER: Mr. President, how -- could you explain a little bit more what -- how the atmosphere of the meeting with president Milosevic, what exactly -- what kinds of questions he was asking and how long this meeting went on and then really what your role was beyond simply spelling out, relaying the paper that you had. PRESIDENT MARTTI AHTISAARI: First of all, you have to perhaps know that most of the people, at least half of the people on the other side of the table are people with whom I had been dealing when I was the chairman of the Bosnia Herzegovina working group. So they didn't meet as total strangers, so they know me and my habits. I think the atmosphere was very business-like. If you want to know, there were no voices raised in the discussion. I presented the case, as I said, I went through the paper, I tried to clarify on the issues that were raised. When you ask what questions were raised, the role of the U.N., the international security presence. My role -- now, in this case, I presented the plan -- if you ask to Belgrade and answered the questions from my U.N. experience because that's why I thought that I was brought into this, as an old U.N. hand. KWAME HOLMAN: Ahtisaari will meet with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott in Helsinki tomorrow.