/CORRECTED REPEAT//CONFLICT-YUGOSLAVIA: G-8 Agreement Turns Back the Clock

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Analysis - Sergei Blagov

MOSCOW, May 7 1999 (IPS) - The peace agreement for Yugoslavia reached in Bonn Thusrday by the world’s seven richest countries and Russia (G-8) may take the Kosovo crisis back to the diplomatic arena after six weeks of massive destruction. It also represents a major diplomatic victory for Moscow, analysts here agree.

The seven-point agreement signed by the G-8 foreign ministers substantially reflects Russia’s proposals to stop the war, negotiated by president Boris Yeltsin’s special envoy Victor Chernomyrdin with the leaders of Yugoslavia and the United States over the past two weeks.

Analysts in Moscow and the US coincided that at this point NATO has no choice but to stop bombardments. “After this failure, NATO will not gather momentum for another bombing, least of all for a ground invasion, ” Georgi Derluguian, expert on Russia and Assistant Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University in Chicago, told IPS.

With the resumption of negotiations, Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic “can drag his feet almost forever on returning the Albanian refugees or introducing domestic ‘reforms,’ ” he argued.

None of the enunciated “strategic goals” of NATO were achieved by six weeks of air raids: protecting ethnic Albanian Kosovars, stabilising the Balkans and undermining Milosevic’s government. Instead, constant escalation and the prospect of a ground war created anxiety in political circles in Washington and Europe.

The United Nations (UN) – so far largely by-passed by NATO- will play a vital role in the maintenance of security and the negotiations over the future of Kosovo, according to the peacle plan.

The agreement does not mention the end of NATO air attacks. Icalls for the withdrawal of Yugoslav police, military and paramilitary forces from Kosovo, the “demilitarisation of the UCK (Kosovo Liberation Army)” and the free return of refugees under international supervision.

If, as expected, the plan is accepted by Belgrade, Kosovo will be temporarily administered by the UN, “to ensure conditions for a peaceful and normal life for all inhabitants for Kosovo. ”

The negotiations on autonomy for the province, will take “full account of the Rambouillet accords and the principles and sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and other countries of the region and the demilitarisation of the UCK,” the plan states.

The US-inspired Rambouillet plan included an international force led by NATO, with full and unrestricted access to the entire Yugoslav territory, which was not publicised at the time of the negotiations (January- March) and which was rejected by Belgrade.

Diplomatic observers in Moscow underlined that the G-8 peace proposal does not mention NATO and does not include Yugoslav border troops among those to be withdrawn from Kosovo.

Russian Foreign minister Igor Ivanov said Thursday in Berlin that the composition of any international force – including NATO forces – would have to be negotiated with Yugoslavia, as the “sovereignty of Yugoslavia” is explicitly guaranteed in the document.

The Russian plan for Yugoslavia contemplates an international force composed by Russian, Ukrainian and Bulgarian troops, along with soldiers from three newly-admitted NATO countries (Hungary, Poland and Czech Republic), plus Portugal and Greece.

Chernomyrdin had argued prior to the announcement that Russia’s demand to halt the bombing and guarantee the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia remained a priority.

Moscow’s consistent disagreement with NATO action against Yugoslavia seems to be firmly based upon a broad consensus in Russian society, with some nine tenths of the population believed to be against the bombing campaign.

Nobel laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn delivered a stinging rebuke of NATO for bombing Yugoslavia, comparing the Atlantic alliance to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, and denounced justifications for the air campaign as hypocritical and self-serving.

Influential Moscow Mayor and 2000 presidential hopeful Yury Luzhkov lashed out NATO’s planned Western oil embargo of Yugoslavia, saying Russia should defy the ban.

The Kremlin’s stance is shared by many former Soviet states – apart from Russia’s traditional ally Belarus. Any international peace-keeping force for Kosovo must be under the UN aegis and must not include troops from those countries which had taken part in bombing campaign, Ukrainian president Leonid Kuchma said May 5.

It’s probably no coincidence that by the end of April Russian and China finished an exhaustive demarcation of their borders – completing detailed maps and supporting documents that altogether weigh 50 kilograms – thus resolving territorial disputes that brought the neighbours to violent clashes three decades ago.

On May 6 Sergei Prikhodko, Yeltsin’s deputy chief of staff in charge of foreign policy, visited Beijing claiming two nations’ “largely coinciding” approach concerning the Yugoslavia crisis.

Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev has repeatedly lashed out NATO’s action and new strategy, saying Moscow would now have to reshape its own security doctrine and review its vast nuclear and conventional forces.

After NATO’s 50th anniversary summit in Washington last month, in which a Strategic Concept that extends the alliance’s sphere of operations was adopted,.Sergeyev announced that Russian nuclear forces were on the “highest level” of combat readiness.

Russia now sees bigger role for tactical nuclear weapons. Last week President Yeltsin chaired a secret meeting of his Security Council to discuss Russia’s future nuclear plans. Security Council secretary Vladimir Putin said that Yeltsin signed three decrees covering “the development of the nuclear weapons complex and a concept for developing and using non-strategic nuclear weapons.”

Furthermore, the NATO action against Yugoslavia undermined prospects of ratification a key strategic arms reduction deal, START II , signed in 1993, which would limit each side’s strategic warheads to 3,000 – 3,500, half the current levels.

But now START II seems highly unlikely to be ratified by the Russian parliament before the next election due in December 1999.

In a rather predictable piece of Kremlin intrigue, Yeltsin seems is likely to exploit Russia’s success in brining the Yugoslav war to an end to carve away power from prime minister Yevgeny Primakov – probably perceived as a potential rival.