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Top Clinton aide says Milosevic must go

April 11, 1999
Web posted at: 9:08 p.m. EDT (0108 GMT)

In this story: Holy sites in Kosovo could be set aside Washington mulls Milosevic, troops RELATED STORIES, SITES

BRUSSELS, Belgium (CNN) -- Arriving in Europe on Sunday for meetings with NATO and Russian officials to shore up support for airstrikes on Yugoslav targets and defuse U.S.-Russian tensions, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright hinted that Yugoslavia could keep armed forces in Kosovo after the conflict ends between Belgrade and the alliance.

NATO, now in the 19th day of its air campaign, has demanded that Yugoslavia withdraw its military and police forces from the province, but stopped short of explicitly stating that all of them must leave.

In Brussels, Albright dined with NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana and will meet with NATO foreign ministers on Monday.

On Tuesday, she will hold talks with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov in Oslo to try to stem a deterioration in U.S.-Russian ties over the NATO air campaign. Russia has expressed strong criticism of the action against its longstanding ally, Yugoslavia.

In a pre-conflict peace accord between ethnic Albanian rebels and Serb forces, Yugoslavia would have kept several thousand police and army troops on border patrol in Kosovo.

Albright said the conflict could change the numbers allowed by Western nations. "We are not stating specifically what the numbers are ... We have to be realistic and flexible as we look at the future," she said Sunday.

Holy sites in Kosovo could be set aside for Serbs

Albright insisted the United States is not promoting independence for Kosovo or some other kind of partition of the province.

She called that option "premature" although she said she could foresee a situation where arrangements could be made to protect holy sites in Kosovo so Serbs could visit them.

Solana hinted that some kind of diplomatic progress might be expected soon. But Albright said she had seen "no indication whatsoever" that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was prepared to comply with NATO demands.

Washington mulls Milosevic, troops

Looking beyond NATO's military campaign, John Podesta, President Clinton's chief of staff, said Sunday that Yugoslavs must replace Milosevic as their leader if the nation wants to join a democratic Europe.

"For them to create a stable situation, it looks to me like they are going to need a new leader," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press." But the NATO airstrikes were not intended to oust Milosevic, he added.

The mounting call for at least a plan for using ground troops in Kosovo led Podesta to say that there is a contingency plan.

"We have a substantial elaborate plan to insert a force in the event that there's a peaceful ... permissive environment for them to go into," he said.

But as Congress prepares to convene this week, some Capitol Hill leaders were critical of the current NATO policy of no ground troops.

"It's just not logical, and the administration has to change their position on that issue in my view," said Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona), who plans to introduce resolutions in both houses authorizing Clinton to use ground forces.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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