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RELATED VIDEO CNN's Wolf Blitzer reports on the meeting in Paris between President Clinton and French President Jacques Chirac (June 17) Windows Media 28K 80K

June 17, 1999
Web posted at: 9:29 a.m. EDT (1329 GMT)

In this story: 'Humanitarian aid yes, economic aid no' No rush to arrest Milosevic Disagreement on Iraq Next stop: G-8 summit RELATED STORIES, SITES

PARIS (CNN) -- The leaders of France and the United States Thursday ruled out any postwar international help to rebuild Kosovo and the rest of Yugoslavia, other than purely humanitarian aid, as long as President Slobodan Milosevic remains in power.

"I absolutely share the feelings of President Clinton that there can be no economic development aid to a regime which is not democratic," French President Jacques Chirac said outside the Elysee Palace, after a meeting there with his U.S. counterpart.

"Humanitarian aid yes, economic aid no," said Chirac at the joint news conference, adding: "We will not give aid to a regime that is not democratic and whose leader is a wanted war crimes suspect."

The presidents spoke as two top U.S. officials -- Defense Secretary William Cohen and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright -- worked in Helsinki, Finland, with their Russian counterparts to resolve a Kosovo-related standoff with Moscow.

The impasse is over on the role of Russian troops within the NATO-led peacekeeping force now entering the Serb province as Yugoslav forces withdraw.

Clinton said he was optimistic an agreement would be found.

"I hope and believe they will reach a successful conclusion," he told reporters. "I know that ... there are two or three options they are working on, all of which would be acceptable to us."

Both the United States and France are members of the 19- nation NATO alliance; Russia is not.

Clinton decried the mass graves and burned-out villages found by NATO peacekeepers, but advocated a "wait and see" approach on nabbing Milosevic to stand trial for atrocities.

NATO, he said, has a humanitarian priority to get the province's ethnic Albanian refugees home.

"I do not believe that the NATO allies can invade Belgrade to try to deliver the indictment, if you will," Clinton said, when asked about prosecuting Milosevic's indictment by the international war crimes tribunal at The Hague, Netherlands.

"We need to focus on our obligations -- fundamental humanitarian obligations to get the Kosovars home and to continue to uncover whatever evidence of war crimes there is in Kosovo."

Despite the Franco-American unity expressed after the Chirac- Clinton meeting, differences surfaced when talk turned to Saddam Hussein, with France pressing to suspend -- at least partially -- the international embargo against Iraq.

"There is some difference here," Clinton said, emphasizing U.S. resolve to isolate Hussein for his pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.

Chirac, in turn, argued that the Iraqi people are victims of the embargo and that "what we need, at the very least, is to reexamine conditions of the embargo."

Clinton is in Europe on a one-week visit that began Wednesday in Geneva.

After his stop in Paris, the U.S. president departed for Germany to attend the 25th annual economic summit of the world's seven richest nations -- the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada -- and Russia.

The Group of Eight summit begins Friday in Cologne, Germany.

The leaders are to discuss who will pay to rebuild Kosovo and help neighboring Balkan countries following NATO's 78-day bombing campaign of Yugoslavia.

Other topics to be broached include human rights, the environment, trade, terrorism, drug trafficking and crime.

On Monday, Clinton is to attend a U.S.-European Union summit in Bonn, Germany, before traveling to Slovenia, a country slightly smaller than New Jersey that declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991 and seeks to join NATO.

Correspondent John King and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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