Peace Plan Highlights | Photo Gallery | Strike Assessment | News Video Archive | Strike at a Glance | Who's Who | Roots of the Conflict | Story Archive | Links | Discussion

MILITARY PLAN:  ALSO: Yugoslav military presence in Kosovo drawing to a close U.N. wants 2 weeks before Kosovar refugees return  MESSAGE BOARD: Crisis in Kosovo  IN-DEPTH SPECIAL: Focus on Kosovo

June 19, 1999
Web posted at: 11:28 p.m. EDT (0328 GMT)

In this story: Leaders agree on plan to ease Russian debt Protesters create human chain for debt relief RELATED STORIES, SITES

COLOGNE, Germany (CNN) -- With Russian and Western leaders unable to reach an agreement on providing reconstruction aid for Yugoslavia, Russian President Boris Yeltsin is scheduled to arrive Sunday morning to participate in the final day of the G-8 summit.

After a day of haggling Saturday, G-8 members could not resolve a dispute over whether to provide aid to rebuild Yugoslavia if President Slobodan Milosevic remains in power. The United States and Britain insist that aid must be contingent on Milosevic's departure, but the Russians strongly disagreed.

Because the G-8 operates on consensus, the final communique to be issued at the conclusion of the summit on Sunday will not explicitly rule out reconstruction aid for Yugoslavia. And German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder held open the possibility of fixing power plants and roads in the country, ravaged by more than two months of NATO airstrikes.

"One cannot make the Serbian people suffer for their president. One cannot leave them without power in winter or without heat," Schroeder said. "One must separate the humanitarian aid that one must give, can give, without changes in the political foundations."

But U.S. National Security Adviser Samuel Berger said that while the United States would support humanitarian aid, the line between humanitarian acts and reconstruction "is not self-evident."

"Food is clearly on one side of the line. Rebuilding industry and their basic infrastructure is on the other side of the line," he said. "Is getting electric lights back on for the winter humanitarian or is it reconstruction? I don't know what side of the line it is on."

Leaders agree on plan to ease Russian debt

The G-8, or Group of Eight, includes Russia and seven leading industrial democracies -- the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Canada and Italy. On the second day of its annual summit, the leaders agreed on a plan to provide Russia with relief from the debt that has weighed down its economy.

The final communiquŽ will include an arrangement under which Russia can reschedule payments of nearly $70 billion in debt run up by the communist government during the days of the old Soviet Union.

Russian Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin -- stepping in for Yeltsin during the first two days of the meeting -- said Schroeder also agreed to push the International Monetary Fund to release $4.5 billion in Western aid that was blocked when Russia's financial markets collapsed last August.

A clearly pleased Stepashin told a news conference that "the first two days of the Cologne summit were exceptionally successful and productive."

A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Stepashin had assured Western leaders that Russia fully intended to comply with the IMF's terms for release of the funds.

"He talked about the efforts they are making with the Duma to pass the necessary legislation to meet the prior action requirements of the IMF agreement, and their hope is that in July that they would be able to go forward with the IMF," the official said.

Protestors create human chain for debt relief

Protesters gather outside the summit to push for debt relief for poor nations

Outside the summit Saturday, thousands of protesters formed a human chain to draw attention to the issue of debt-relief for poor nations.

On Friday, the G-8 leaders agreed to write off about $90 billion in debt owed by the poor nations -- if they agree to pursue market-oriented reforms to their economy and use the money freed up by debt relief to improve social conditions.

But protesters said the G-8 plan didn't do enough and called on the leaders to forgive all of the debt.

"I suppose our message is we do appreciate it's difficult -- it's a steep incline -- to give total debt cancellation. It's a kind of (Mount) Everest," said Bono, lead singer of the group U-2, who was among the protesters.

"But we want them to take it on, and there's no honor in getting halfway up Everest," he said.

Bono met with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Schroeder, presenting the German leader with a pro-debt-relief petition with millions of signatures.

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

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.