U.S. Department of State Daily Press Briefing #60, 99-05-07
From: The Department of State Foreign Affairs Network (DOSFAN) at <http://www.state.gov>
1033
U.S. Department of State
Daily Press Briefing
I N D E X
Friday, May 7, 1999
Briefer: James P. Rubin
SERBIA (KOSOVO)
1-15 Results of G-8 Meeting in Bonn/Russia's Position/International
Security Presence
1,2 Secretary Albright's Conversation with Russian Foreign Minister
Ivanov
1-2,10 Deputy Secretary Talbott's Travel to Moscow Next Week
3-4 Reaction from Belgrade to G-8 Meeting
6-7 Reaction from the Kosovar Albanians to G-8 Meeting
7 Dr. Rugova's Meeting with Ambassador Chris Hill
15-16 Reported Civilian Casualties from NATO Air Campaign
FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA
14-15 Reports Of Border Closing
UNITED NATIONS
10,12-13 Secretary Albright's Meeting with Kofi Annan
CHINA
16-17 Missile Program/Satellite Launches/Technology Transfers
NORTH KOREA
17 Reports North Korea Seeking Materials from China for Missile
Program
17 Agreement on American Access to Underground Construction in
Kumchang-ni
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING
DPB #60
FRIDAY, May 7, 1999, 1:50 P.M.
(ON THE RECORD UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED)
MR. RUBIN: Greetings. Welcome to the State Department briefing, Friday,
May 7. Let me just start with a couple of comments on yesterday's meetings
and the developments overnight.
NATO leaders and NATO countries and the United States are now operating on
two tracks. The first track is the military track, and that involves the
concentrated military campaign that continues, which is causing heavier and
heavier damage to President Milosevic's forces, his capabilities. His
forces in Kosovo are increasingly being pinned down, cut off and taken out
by NATO military aircraft. Increasingly we see indications that the NATO
forces are in a position to systematically degrade and destroy Milosevic's
military machine.
Meanwhile, on the second track, the United States, along with its partners
in NATO as well as the Russians, are moving to develop a common set of
objectives, a common set of principles that President Milosevic must meet
in order to bring this conflict to a successful conclusion.
We are very pleased that Russia has now accepted in principle an international
security presence that would be sufficient to guarantee the return of the
refugees and the other NATO objectives. That is a step forward. However, we
still have a very, very long way to go.
Secretary Albright spoke this morning to Foreign Minister Ivanov. They had
a detailed discussion following the meeting yesterday, and they agreed that
Deputy Secretary Talbott would travel to Moscow, leaving here, I believe,
Monday for meetings in Moscow Tuesday and Wednesday. What he will be doing
is beginning the laborious and important process of fleshing out the
details and the procedures and the arrangements necessary for the
conditions, the principles that the Group of Eight put forward yesterday
to be filled out.
That is going to be a difficult process. We and the Russians still have a
lot to talk about with respect to the composition of an international
security presence. For our part, all the NATO countries are united that in
the absence of a NATO force at the core of any international security
presence, the refugees will not return and the objectives will not be
met.
Similarly, we and the Russians also disagree on a number of details that
need to be fleshed out. That is why Deputy Secretary Talbott will be
working with an interagency team to try to do so. Secretary Albright's
military advisor, General Foglesong, will accompany Deputy Secretary
Talbott. There will be other officials on the trip because now we need to
get down to the serious business of fleshing out the principles that were
agreed yesterday in Bonn.
NATO's military campaign is clearly having an increasing affect on
President Milosevic's forces, on President Milosevic's military machine and
on the psychology of the people in Belgrade, who we hope will eventually
convince President Milosevic that it's time to reverse course. He has only
two choices: either to reverse course or to face an intensifying and
punishing military campaign.
QUESTION: I notice you say the US and Russia still have a long way to go,
and then you followed that immediately by the US statement that without
NATO at its core in the force, the refugees will have a hard time coming
back. The inference is that Russia has not yet agreed that NATO should be
at the core of that international security force. Is that correct?
MR. RUBIN: I would put it the following way. In her discussions with
Foreign Minister Ivanov, Secretary Albright has tried not to be theological
where obviously Russia has concerns about NATO, but to be very practical
and to focus the attention of the Russians on two aspects of this
situation: one, getting the refugees home; and two, the disarmament of the
Kosovar Liberation Army. She made very clear to Foreign Minister Ivanov -
as I think is evident from the statements of Dr. Rugova and other Kosovar
leaders - that it is a NATO force being at the core of an international
security presence that will be the magnet to attract the refugees back; and
that in the absence of a NATO force with American participation, it is
completely unrealistic to think the Kosovar Albanians will disarm the KLA,
something of great interest to Russia.
On the basis of these discussions, we believe Russia increasingly
understands the rationale for a NATO force. That doesn't mean they've
publicly agreed to it, but it does mean that we're moving in the right
direction. If you compare this to what was happening in Oslo, at that time
we said that we think the Russians increasingly understand the rationale
for an international security force but they're not ready to say that. And
then we've moved now, a couple of weeks later, to a point where they're
ready to say that.
All of this is not to say that it will only by NATO that will participate
in such a force. We have long said that we would look forward to participation
by Russia, Ukraine and other important countries. One of the things that we
are now going to discuss in greater detail with Russia is the kind of
detailed command arrangements that would permit Russia to participate. Our
model, essentially - nothing is ever exactly the same in this world -
but a model that has been guiding us is the Russian participation in Bosnia
alongside a NATO-led international force.
QUESTION: The other thing that Bosnia brings up is that there you have a
division of the country into two sections, two entities and the Russians
are in one part. I'm wondering whether, in fact, you could address the
whole issue of whether Kosovo might also be divided in such a way with the
Russians in one part?
MR. RUBIN: Well, there's two issues that are implied by that question.
One is a political question of partition, and the other is a military
question of sectors of responsibility. Surely, there will be sectors of
responsibility in any peacekeeping force. That is something for military
commanders to work out, based on a variety of factors. As far as partition
politically is concerned, that will not happen.
As you know quite well, Kosovo is not Bosnia. When you look at the
composition of the ethnic groups and you look at the way that the different
people are located in different places. Obviously, a lot of that has
changed in the aftermath of President Milosevic's brutal campaign of forced
expulsions of over a million people from their homes. But we do not foresee
allowing military arrangements to change the fact that this will be Kosovo
with self-government for all the people of Kosovo through some form of
interim administration. It will not be partitioned.
QUESTION: Do the Russians agree on that part?
MR. RUBIN: I think they understand that we're not going to support
partition. How they would formulate that, I doubt they would say they're
for partition.
QUESTION: Are you hearing, through diplomatic channels, from Belgrade
that they, too, are becoming more amenable to a solution along the lines
that you agreed in Bonn, or that you outlined in Bonn?
MR. RUBIN: We hear a variety of things through diplomatic channels about
Belgrade's position. We are not going to state that we believe Belgrade has
moved until Belgrade has moved. One hears a number of conflicting reports,
some of the kind that you mentioned; others of a reverse kind. There are a
lot of conflicting reports. Clearly, the Russians have had, through
Chernomyrdin, the best opportunity to speak to President Milosevic in
depth. They will obviously have that opportunity again. Others have
been in touch with President Milosevic. We hear about that through
a variety of channels.
But at this point, we do not believe President Milosevic has accepted the
conditions, and there's no such thing as picking and choosing. Either he
accepts the objectives or he doesn't; there is no middle ground.
QUESTION: Perhaps you heard there was a proposal floated in Belgrade -
apparently not official - with this 30 percent NATO force, 30 percent
Russia and Ukraine, 30 percent from other countries. Could you comment on
that? And then secondarily, sort of giving it a little bit of weight, is
that the spokesman for the provisional government of the Kosovars, the one
headed by Thaci, have flatly rejected that - publicly and on the record -
saying that if it's not a force that's mostly NATO, mainly NATO - 90
percent or so - then nobody's going to return. Furthermore, they wonder
why was there bombing, then, if you're going to end up settling for
a force that perhaps you might have been able to get with a little bit more
negotiations at Rambouillet? That's them speaking, not me.
MR. RUBIN: Yes, I don't think that any more negotiations at Rambouillet
would have achieved any more out of the Serbs. They refused to ever discuss
the question of an international security presence. They refused to have
any discussions on that subject. That is one of the reasons why NATO went
forward with its military action, because there was no indication they
would ever discuss such a thing. So on that last point, I think that's
worth correcting - whether it's a Kosovar Albanian who said it or anybody
else who said it. It's just not so.
With respect to 30-30-30, I've never heard that except in press accounts.
We're just not into numbers at this point. What's been going on is that
NATO has been updating its assessment - excuse me, its operational plans -
for a peacekeeping force through the NATO military authorities in Mons
(Belgium). That force is, by all accounts, going to have to be bigger than
the force that would have been deployed had the Serbs ever been willing to
discuss an international presence and agree to the Rambouillet accords.
So all aspects of the Rambouillet accords with respect to this force are
not necessarily in play. What's in play is that we think we need an
international security presence sufficient to provide the magnet for the
Kosovar-Albanians to come home. We've noted both Mr. Krasniqi and Dr.
Rugova have all talked about the importance of NATO being the force that
brings them home. We have insisted that NATO remain the core of that force,
but just as we had envisaged earlier this year during the peace phase,
during the diplomatic phase that Russia and others could play a role, we
still believe that. Our basic numerical approach hasn't changed. All that
has changed is in light of the terrible atrocities committed by the
Serb forces and the terrible dislocations caused by the Serb forces, our
initial sense is that one would need more rather than less than the 29,000
envisaged for K-FOR in January.
But as far as how these arrangements will emerge and how they will develop,
first we need to finish the updating of the operational plan; then we need
to discuss this matter with the Russians. I'm not going to get into a
position of commenting on everybody's idea of a force. We have described
our force: NATO at its core; bigger rather than smaller than the original
plan; welcoming Russian and Ukraine and other participation. Beyond that, I
couldn't comment.
QUESTION: Jamie, let me just try to follow up Sid in a different way. The
partition legally aside, I've heard the Secretary in Sarajevo (inaudible)
Kosovo - she never used the phrase "melting pot," but obviously she thinks
it would be a great virtue in Europe in these troubled areas if people got
to get along with each other and intermingled and lived side by side. Isn't
it logical that if you have military zones, you would put the Russians
where the Serbs are; you would put the others where the Serbs aren't,
where the Muslims are? And even if you did in fact do that, don't you
imagine that the Serbs would gravitate where the troops would be more
favorably inclined to them - similarly the Muslims? And aren't you working
against yourself, against the principle of people getting together and
living together homogeneously if you have these zones?
MR. RUBIN: Boy, that was quite a complicated set of questions. Let me try
to parse them down.
QUESTION: No, think about it.
MR. RUBIN: I'll think about it and give you my answer in writing after my
thesis is complete.
QUESTION: It sounds like semi-partitioned to me without being partitioned.
MR. RUBIN: But let me try to make the two main points that you addressed
from our standpoint - the policy that applies here. First of all, I think
everyone recognizes that after a million and a half people - more than a
million people - have been evicted from their homes, deported, expelled,
raped, killed, atrocities that are continuing to be uncovered, that there's
going to be a long, long time of healing in Kosovo after the refugees go
back. I don't think anybody has any illusions about that.
Secondly, Kosovo is not Bosnia demographically, geographically; it's not
the same. One has to be very cautious about making analogies when the
situation is not the same. In Kosovo, we're talking about a beginning
population of Kosovar Albanians well above 90 percent, as opposed to Bosnia
and other places where there was much more intermingling. There wasn't as
much intermingling in Kosovo as the other places you mentioned. Therefore,
the idea of intermingling in the aftermath of this conflict and in the
context of Kosovo, which was always very different than Bosnia, is a
completely different issue than the one you described from Bosnia.
Secondly, with respect to where the Russians might deploy, yes, it is fair
to presume that the Russian participation will be linked to those areas
where the Serbs have been predominant. That is reasonable to assume. But
that doesn't mean that one will create partition through military means
that we will not accept through political means. You have to have zones. We
are not going to have the pattern of Bosnia, which I described to you, did
not have Russia fully interspersed with NATO forces in particular
sectors. But ways were found for the Russians to participate, to play
a role in providing security to certain sectors with a relationship
of command and control to NATO and, therefore, the United States.
So that was worked out. Every situation is different. I'm not going to
begin to speculate for you on exactly what the military operational zones
of Kosovo will be, other than to say that it is not correct that Kosovo is
Bosnia in terms of the objective of fully mixing the multiethnic society
the way you had it in Bosnia. There are other minorities. We obviously want
to protect all minorities, and that continues to be a principle.
Thirdly, I wouldn't assume that because you have sectors that you have
partition. That would be a wrong assumption.
QUESTION: Jamie, you've addressed the differences in the international
force from Rambouillet - what was envisioned there to what it is now. Can
you --
MR. RUBIN: Only in the most general terms, but yes.
QUESTION: Can you address what differences, if any, there are between
Rambouillet and the G-8 yesterday on the demilitarization of the KLA? And
have you talked to the KLA or have they talked to you about that idea?
MR. RUBIN: There's no question that in the aftermath of, again, a million-
plus people being forced from their homes and some of the worst mass
expulsion since World War II and these terrible crimes against humanity and
war crimes that have committed, that a lot have changed inside Kosovo. We
are going to be very understanding and sympathetic to the Kosovar Albanian
concerns that flow from that mass of dislocation and those unspeakable
war crimes that have been committed.
At the same time, we do believe that if NATO forces do deploy - and that's
what we are seeking and we are determined to achieve - that a lot of the
rationale for the Kosovar Liberation Army having an armed force to protect
itself against Serbs will be leaving. As you may recall in the Rambouillet
accords, we envisaged something like 2,500 Serb military and 2,500 police
for a year. We're now talking about all of those forces going. So we're
talking about a situation where the understandable need for -- the
Kosovar Albanians' need for insurgency - something that we could understand
in the face of Serb repression with these tens of thousands of forces -
will go away. The security environment will be created and protected and
insured by the international security presence, with NATO at its core.
So their rationale for having a military capability, however limited, will
disappear. We will explain that to them; we will discuss it with them. We
have confidence that at the end of the day, if Milosevic does agree finally
to NATO's demands and we do have an international security force with NATO
at its core and all the Serb forces are removed - and those are our
objectives - that will create a lot of opportunity for constructive
discussions with the Kosovars on what needs to be happening. And we do
believe that there needs to be disarmament and demilitarization.
QUESTION: To follow up, have you heard anything from them in reaction to
the G-8 plan on that point?
MR. RUBIN: I'm not aware -- we've gone through in great detail with the G-
8 principles in the last 24 hours with the Kosovar Albanians. But again,
Larry Rossin, one of the Secretary's designated interlocutors with the
Kosovar Albanians has been in the region now for some days; has been
meeting with a variety of Kosovar Albanian officials and explaining quite
clearly what we're doing on their behalf. We believe that at the end of the
day, when Serb forces are out and a force with NATO at its core is in, then
the Kosovar Albanians will not be the block to a successful return
of peace to Kosovo.
QUESTION: On that one point, Jamie - Larry Rossin?
MR. RUBIN: Rossin. R-O-S-S-I-N.
QUESTION: On that specific point, was he the one who met Wednesday in
Tirana with the members of the provisional government in the KLA?
MR. RUBIN: He's been meeting with a variety of Kosovar Albanian figures.
Ambassador Hill has met, two days ago now, with Dr. Rugova; Larry Rossin
has been in the region in Albania and Macedonia meeting with a variety of
figures.
QUESTION: I was wondering what the minimum requirements for NATO would be
of this international security force for NATO presence. When you say NATO
at its core, I understand that's command and control, et cetera. But what
kind of a percentage? You heard Sid mention the breakdown -
MR. RUBIN: Right, and I specifically said that it was premature to
describe a percentage. I gave what I could say at this time. This is all
issues that are not ripe for public discussion. We had a force of 29,000
NATO forces envisaged in January/February with the addition, possibly, of
Russian and Ukrainian forces. We are now - the initial indicators that
probably will need to be larger. I'm not a military planner so I can't give
you a number; I'm trying to give you an idea.
As far as what percentages various countries will take up, it's wildly
premature for me to react to each time someone throws out a percentage;
other than to say that our sense is that more rather than less has been
coming out of the NATO planning, and that NATO will remain at its core and
the US participation will be contingent upon that.
QUESTION: How does the United States feel about the failure of Dr. Rugova
to give a ringing endorsement to the NATO military operation? And are you
now confident that he is not under any restraint at all, and is completely
free to speak his mind?
MR. RUBIN: I would reject completely your characterization of his
comments. It seems like you must have read a different account of his
comments than I did. Dr. Rugova met with Ambassador Hill for quite some
time in Italy two days ago. He spoke on the phone with Secretary Albright
from Italy, and she was quite heartened by the endorsement he gave to the
work that we've been doing on behalf of the Kosovar Albanians and his very
clear statement that it's the NATO five conditions and only those five
conditions that can bring peace to Kosovo.
So when he made his public comments and reiterated that, we think that he
stated quite well the position that we've taken; which is that until these
five conditions are met, the air campaign will continue, it will intensify,
President Milosevic will pay a higher and higher price with each passing
day. So I wouldn't agree at all with your characterization and therefore
the second part of your question couldn't apply.
QUESTION: So you (inaudible) --
MR. RUBIN: I am not in a position to be a judge of his freedom to speak
or not to speak. I told you that Ambassador Hill met with him, had a good
discussion with him. He's in Italy; he's not under arrest; he's in safe
keeping; his family got out. Those are the comments he made and we were
quite pleased with them.
QUESTION: Jamie, I realize this is somewhat down the road, but could you
talk a bit about what sort of government structure you see that might exist
in Kosovo after people go home? Under Rambouillet there was an illusion to
elections within three years to try to determine their fate, so to speak,
and -
MR. RUBIN: Quicker than that - I think the elections would have happened
very quickly. Let me tell you the best I can. Obviously a lot of the
political components of Rambouillet have been overtaken by events. And
we're not going to hold the Kosovar Albanians to those in light of the
terrible atrocities committed against them by the Serb forces in the war
crimes and crimes against humanity that are being now investigated.
With respect to how we would foresee it unfolding, we stated in the G-8
principles that we could foresee an interim administration that would be
blessed by the United Nations. Exactly who and what the form of that would
be - the civil presence as described by that document - is something we
will continue to work on. Again, that would be something that Strobe
Talbott and his team would be discussing with the Russians and others.
Obviously we want democracy and self-government for the people of Kosovo.
So as the interim administration unfolds, it will transition to some self-
governing system. But for the meantime, since there is such an urgency to
get these over a million people outside of their homes back, we think the
right course is to create an interim administration quickly; deploy the
peacekeeping force to create a secure environment for them; and then work
on the political arrangements to ensure that they have democratic self-
government, and we would be doing that.
QUESTION: The Kosovars' previous agreement to disarm, as I understand it,
was linked to at least the hope of securing eventual independence. In your
discussions with the KLA now, are you still holding out that possibility of
several years down the road being able to choose independence?
MR. RUBIN: I would disagree fundamentally with your characterization of
what we ever presented to them as our position. The Rambouillet accords
specified a three-year period of autonomy, after which the matter would be
discussed again. That is neither prejudicing in favor or against anybody's
position. That's called an interim solution. We didn't hold out hope for
them that they would get independence; we didn't take away their hope that
there would be independence. So that is not what happened before.
What we did say is that we are not going to tell you to disavow your dreams,
but rather to be practical for the next three years. That is what we said
at the time, and I said it to you during the briefings many, many
times.
Their commitment to disarm was as much a commitment to a result of a NATO
force deploying as it was any political commitment. Let's remember, they
are a very lightly armed insurgency without heavy equipment that have not
been capable of confronting Serb forces; that in the absence of Serb forces
to confront, wouldn't have foes with which to engage. So the real question
would be a police force. That's why we envisaged the standing up of
thousands of Kosovar Albanian police, including possibly people from
the KLA, who would be trained by the international community and could
serve police functions.
So they will make these decisions for themselves, we're not going to make
them for them. But the objective here is to create the kind of secure
environment that makes it not necessary for them to deploy in large
numbers.
QUESTION: What type of arms would you expect the police to --
MR. RUBIN: What kind of what?
QUESTION: What kind of weapons would the police be able to have?
MR. RUBIN: Well, normal police weapons that we envisage for - nothing's
changed there. We have a police training program. Whatever is appropriate
for a police force as opposed to military forces; nothing really would
change.
QUESTION: This morning in the Rose Garden, the President talked about a
model along the lines of Bosnia. He talked specifically of three segments:
one with the primary responsibility to the Russians and Americans, he said,
and then one with the primary responsibility to the British, and another
with primary responsibility in the hands of the French. Does that rise out
of what happened yesterday in Bonn, or is that just an idea being
floated?
MR. RUBIN: No, it's not an idea being floated for Kosovo. The President
was very clear - and first let me say, I agree with the President. What the
President was doing was explaining how Bosnia worked, not how Kosovo is
going to work. So he was saying that this is the kind of model where you
have the British in one zone, the French in one zone, the Americans sharing
with the Russians a particular sector. That's what Bosnia was and is. So he
was explaining a model.
That is a model that I have repeatedly used and the State Department and
the Secretary and people at the Defense Department have repeatedly used, to
try to explain how we would envisage NATO at the core of the force with the
Russians and others participating.
We did not get into detail at the G-8 with all the ministers on composing a
force. That would be something for military officials to do. We did make
very clear the reasons why the force has to be robust; it has to be
effective; it has to be heavily armed, it can't just have side arms. It
needs to be the kind of force that will make it extremely unlikely that any
party would attack.
QUESTION: But along the sector model, as in Bosnia, although there would
be geographical locations of each of these subcommands, the principal
command and control would be central and in the hands of NATO; is that how
it's envisioned?
MR. RUBIN: Again, I've described to you what a NATO core force means, and
you've asked me this question before and I've given you formal answers. It
is premature for the State Department to begin to spell out precise command
and control arrangements for a peacekeeping force -- that would be a
military responsibility - except to say that for us, a NATO force at the
core means that American and NATO forces would have command and control
through the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. That is what we mean
by that.
But how the other non-NATO forces would relate to the NATO forces - Bosnia
is one model, and that it something that we can discuss. But we are not
going to pre-state publicly, even as we have not yet fully discussed this
with our partners who might participate, the arrangements that might be
made for that in the future.
QUESTION: Could you tell us who Talbott will be dealing with primarily in
Moscow? Will it be Ivanov or Chernomyrdin?
MR. RUBIN: I would assume both. Secretary Albright spoke to Foreign
Minister Ivanov this morning to arrange for Deputy Secretary Talbott's
visit on Tuesday and arrange for his group to be met with a similar group
on the Russian side to get down to details.
I would assume a lot of the work might occur at lower levels, too. But both
Chernomyrdin and Ivanov are the interlocutors that we've been discussing
this matter with.
QUESTION: As well, could you characterize the Secretary's meeting this
afternoon with Kofi Annan? Is that a courtesy call, a briefing session?
MR. RUBIN: Well, I don't know quite how it got on the schedule - in other
words, who initiated it. But I do know that I would expect Kosovo to take
up a fair bit of time. As you know, the Secretary has a very good
relationship with Kofi Annan, dating back from her time in New York, and
they tend to have wide-ranging discussions. But given the announcement
today of his two envoys or officials to assist him in his work, that would
obviously be one of the discussions.
In that regard, let me say that we think it would be helpful to have
additional UN officials working on implementing this agreement after the
agreement is struck. In other words, how a civil administration would work;
what would be its relationship to the NATO core force; what about police;
what about the humanitarian side. So we think it's appropriate for the two
officials as named to play that role and to begin to think about what - so
that we're ready when and if - when -- President Milosevic reverses course
and we need to implement the settlement as spelled out in the principles.
QUESTION: Can I take that point quickly? The examples you gave did not
include the military force itself. Will the UN not be involved -- and you
know the consequences in Bosnia when they were - in the disposition of the
military force? You gave the UN - you know, the Baltimore Sun headline
today - they're not alone -- "NATO Demands Skirted." In other words,
they see what happened yesterday as getting around about core principles
- but getting away --
MR. RUBIN: I can't imagine The Baltimore Sun reporter could have made
that kind of mistake. (Laughter).
QUESTION: Oh, I can. I can because the President of the United States
said before he went to Germany, "I'm prepared to negotiate the composition
of the force."
MR. RUBIN: But in much the way I said it every day - that we're
discussing the composition of the force, with one point being non-
negotiable: that NATO be at the core.
QUESTION: All right, but remembering the mayhem in Bosnia and remembering
the UN's - how should I put it delicately - inability to deal with it on
many occasions, will the UN have any role in curbing the judgment of NATO
forces in Kosovo, their operations?
MR. RUBIN: I'm still stunned by the possibility The Baltimore Sun could
have written a story that way.
QUESTION: Well, it's the headline: "NATO Demands Skirted."
MR. RUBIN: It must be the headline writer, then.
QUESTION: Yeah, they always do things like that.
MR. RUBIN: Let me say, here's the situation. In the United States and in
Europe, there is often a lot of misunderstanding when the words "United
Nations" get used, so let me explain it.
There is a difference - having spent four years in New York with Secretary
Albright, who was then the UN Ambassador for the United States - between a
UN-authorized force pursuant to a Security Council resolution and a UN-run
force as a blue-helmeted peacekeeping operation. In the former category
includes Desert Storm; it was a UN-authorized military operation. In Bosnia
there was a UN-authorized peacekeeping operation called IFOR, run by a NATO
general with no United Nations involvement in the military operation.
That is what we're talking about here. Nobody in the United States or any
of the NATO countries envisages the United Nations Secretariat and the blue
helmet peacekeeping unit to play any role in the peacekeeping force. This
would be a situation where the United Nations Security Council, acting on
behalf of the world, would authorize member states to put together a force.
The UN might have a role on the civilian side; certainly will have a role
on the refugee side; might have a role on the police side; but on
the military side - that is, the military force - nobody is envisaging the
United Nations playing a role.
So it is important to have the UN Security Council authorize such a
resolution, but as we've said, it has to be a NATO core force, which for us
means the NATO forces must be under the command of a NATO commander,
meaning through the authority of the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe,
period, full stop. There is no discussion of that. And regardless of what
quote people might try to take from the President, the President has been
very clear - and the Secretary has spent a lot of time with him - that we
are open to discussing how to compose the force in addition to the
NATO core portion, just the way we were open to discussing it in January
and February if Russia or others had been prepared to do so.
Nothing has changed. I've said from this podium for a week or two weeks now
that the question of discussing the composition of the force is one we will
continue to do so long as it has NATO at its core.
QUESTION: Can I just follow up on Mr. Annan's meeting with the Secretary.
Would the US welcome Mr. Annan if he wanted to go to Belgrade on a
diplomatic mission; would it welcome UN involvement in trying to negotiate
a political solution?
MR. RUBIN: At this point, that's a hypothetical question. He has
indicated that he has no plans to go. He repeated that this morning, that
he would only go in the event of that being fully well prepared. All he
said this morning is he wouldn't rule it out. So it's a hypothetical
question at this point.
Our view is that it's not so much who the interlocutors are, because
basically what we're looking for is an answer to the question of who
Milosevic will tell that he's accepted NATO's conditions. That's the job.
Chernomyrdin has been playing a constructive role in trying to ask us to
what extent the - how we can flesh out the NATO conditions for him so that
he understands them, so that when he meets with President Milosevic he can
explain NATO's position.
But at this point, there is no proposal for UN officials to go to Belgrade;
so it's hypothetical at this point.
QUESTION: Jamie, -- (inaudible) -- ask him directly. Could you see
perhaps if some of these photo ops - there are several today --
MR. RUBIN: I don't think I can do anything about that today.
QUESTION: Well, Kofi Annan is here late in the day.
MR. RUBIN: You can contact his spokesman; I'm sure he'll be happy to
arrange for you to talk to him.
QUESTION: No, no, you've done a lot of very detailed explaining; I have
pages and pages of material.
MR. RUBIN: But as far as getting access to Kofi Annan, I can't help you
with that.
QUESTION: I'd like to hear the Secretary of State and I would like to
hear Mr. Annan get a chance at least --
MR. RUBIN: Well, if you had gone to Bonn yesterday you would have had an
opportunity to hear from the Secretary.
QUESTION: No, but there are three events here today and they're all --
MR. RUBIN: No, one of your colleagues did go. He flew over there and he
did have an opportunity to hear from the Secretary of State.
QUESTION: He's probably taking the day off to recover. No, you have three
events here today, including - it's pretty important - three picture taking
events, silent picture-taking. Pictures, I guess, can tell - are as good as
1,000 words. But I think there's great sentiment in the press corps - I
think I speak for several of us - that we would welcome an opportunity
to put a question or two to the Secretary. We all have TV sets and we do
watch TV on Sunday talk shows, but today's Friday and we'd like to get a
head start and get something to her; and especially if we get to talk to
that duo, Annan and Albright. If you can give it a shot.
QUESTION: Jamie, coming back to the issue of the withdrawal of the Serb
forces, in yesterday's G-8 statement they referred to "withdrawal," but you
used the phrase, as did the Secretary as "complete withdrawal." I'm just
wondering, is this a negotiable point, or is this a non-negotiable
point from the point of view of the United States?
MR. RUBIN: Well, if you look at the NATO communique, which I'm sure you
studied with the same care that you looked at the G-8 communique, the
language is basically the same - "withdrawal of Serb military police and
paramilitary units" - in the G-8 as it was in the NATO communique. So I
wouldn't look for big differences there.
We have said that in our view, all the Serb forces - the military,
paramilitary and police forces - need to withdraw. That's for a very simple
reason. What we're talking about here is the tens of thousands of forces
who have been responsible for one of the most brutal war crimes in modern
memory: kicking a million people out of their homes; the raping of women;
the murder of thousands of men; the forced expulsions; and all the stories
that you're quite familiar with. Those are the people responsible for
that. The idea that the Kosovar Albanians are going to come home to
a situation where those same forces remain at their posts is simply
unthinkable.
Again, I'm not going to rule out tiny numbers for you, as I've told some of
you in various forums; but the US position is that those forces - the
military, paramilitary, police forces - have got to go.
QUESTION: One of the things - they do stand for sovereignty and a
continued sovereignty over Kosovo, which I believe is one of the American
positions -- that Serbia and Yugoslavia have continued to maintain
sovereignty and so it's --
MR. RUBIN: That's why I'm not going to rule out some symbolic situation.
But I'm saying that the forces that are responsible have to withdraw
completely.
QUESTION: I would just associate myself with Barry's request, especially
if we could ask a question or two during the statement from the Secretary
and the Polish Foreign Minister. Secondly, I'd like to go back to Roy's
question on in the G-8 communique - back to your explanation of independence.
What you left out was that after three years the international community
would consider the results of a vote of Kosovars. That was not in the
communique; all that was in the G-8 communique was support for the
territorial integrity of the former Yugoslavia. Can you - how does that now
play into your thinking taking into consideration a vote?
MR. RUBIN: You've misstated what Rambouillet envisaged. Rambouillet
envisaged a meeting in which several inputs would be taken into account:
the views of various populations in Kosovo; any expressions of the will of
the people that might occur; the views of Belgrade. There was no presumption
one way or the other; and the way you stated it made a presumption of an
outcome, which we did not. Nothing has changed in our view; we do not
support independence for Kosovo. We came up with what we thought was
a very flexible formula which achieved the objective. The objective
was to get the Kosovar Albanians to sign the accord without requiring an
explicit commitment for independence, which they did not get. They got an
interim agreement for three years, after which the issue will be revisited
with the same assumption that the US position would be not to support
independence. That remains the US position.
QUESTION: And is that embedded in the G-8 communique?
MR. RUBIN: The discussion of the political future of Kosovo is a long
paragraph, which I would be happy to read to you, in which the discussion
included a political process towards the establishment of an interim
political framework agreement providing for a substantial self-government
for Kosovo; taking full account of the Rambouillet accords and the
principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia and the other countries of the region; and the demilitarization
of the UCK. That is the political sentence in the G-8 communique.
Our position remains the same -- we do not support independence; we do
support real self-government for the people of Kosovo. That is the kind of
thing that will have to be discussed once an interim administration is put
in place, along with a robust military force that can guarantee the
security of the region.
QUESTION: Question one, Macedonia has closed its borders, I understand,
and I would ask what the United States and NATO is doing to see that at
least those who want to come through Macedonia on their way to Albania have
an opportunity to do that. And the second part of the question is, there is
still just a one-way flow out of Kosovo. What would be the matter with
trying to work something out as a deal is made and put together to allow a
cease-fire; to allow those who are in bad shape in the mountains to be
brought out; to just basically to put people in tents for a while
until - it's going to take months in order to get an environment in
Kosovo where the migrants would go back. So I ask you about those two
points.
MR. RUBIN: I don't understand the second point, but with respect to the
first point, Ambassador Hill has returned after meeting with Dr. Rugova to
discuss this question of the border with the government in Skopje. The
Macedonian Government has assured us the border will remain open as a
matter of policy. We will continue to follow this matter very closely.
We have urged the government of Macedonia to fulfill its international
obligations to accept refugees and to cooperate fully with the UN and other
aid agencies as they pursue various solutions to deal with the refugee
crisis that is created by President Milosevic's conscious expulsion of --
the conscious decision to have over a million people forced from their
home.
QUESTION: And the second part of my question was basically why not work
towards some kind of cease fire that will allow the rest of those who are
in the hills who are sick, who are weak to come outside until --
MR. RUBIN: We're working on ways to try to maximize the opportunity to
get food and medicine to those people. The UN is sending a mission; we're
working on some ideas of our own to get food and medicine to them.
QUESTION: I want to come back to one more point about the agreement
yesterday in Bonn. The Russians are on board having an international
security force in Kosovo to follow the conflict, but is there kind of a
quid pro quo for them coming on board that position? For example, that NATO
will not mount a ground combat force and send it in, in order to -
MR. RUBIN: No.
QUESTION: I'm sorry?
MR. RUBIN: No.
QUESTION: So there is -
MR. RUBIN: I don't know how to be more clear and specific than no.
QUESTION: Although NATO has been trying to avoid the civilian casualties,
this morning there apparently - possibly a cluster bomb in the marketplace.
I'm wondering if there's any fear among NATO that some of the reaction from
the public within NATO countries such as Germany and Hungary may eventually
lead to some of the allies --
MR. RUBIN: First of all, I am hesitant to accept at face value the
reports out of the severely controlled Belgrade press, which only seems to
take journalists to situations in which they can claim civilians have been
killed and doesn't allow journalists to go and see the terrible atrocities
committed by Serb forces in Kosovo. So I would urge you, with the same
caution, to not assume that what the Belgrade Government tells and shows
the international media is correct. In fact, many times it is outright
lies.
With respect to this incident, however, NATO is looking into it. I don't
have any additional information. When we've developed information that
indicated inadvertent civilian casualties, we've provided that as best we
can. We have no doubt that in democracies, people in democracies care about
the violence that they see on their TV, and when they see civilians killed
that effects them. It's just a shame that in Serbia, the people of Serbia
aren't seeing the violence being committed by Serb forces against
the people of Kosovo. Maybe they would try to convince their leader
to reverse course, which is the only way to avoid this situation.
QUESTION: Senator Shelby has just released the findings of his investigation
into China, among them saying that China's ballistic missile program has
benefited from satellite technology from the United States. I'm wondering -
on a related subject - if the Administration has any evidence that China
continues to proliferate missile technology or components to other
countries?
MR. RUBIN: On the report, there are some parts of this report that we do
agree with - many of the points we do agree with; that is that the United
States should not assist China's ballistic missile program in connection
with Chinese launches of US commercial communication satellites. We have
not authorized the transfer of any technology to assist Chinese ballistic
missile programs. We do share the Committee's concern that unauthorized
assistance and transfers of technology relevant to space launch vehicles
and ballistic missiles may have occurred during certain space launch
failures. That is why the Department of Justice is investigating these
allegations to determine if any violation of our regulations occurred.
We also agree with the finding that there is no evidence that these
unauthorized technology transfers have in fact been incorporated into
China's currently deployed ICBM force, which was developed and deployed
long before US satellites were approved for export to China. We're also
concerned about the unauthorized assistance and transfers of space-launch
vehicle technology could assist the Chinese in the future. That's why we're
working very hard to make sure not only that the US export regulations are
followed carefully, but that non-US foreign sources do not provide
China with this kind of technology.
In addition, we have a number of responses to these various reports -- to
the Senate report. With respect to your question, we believe that we have
made great strides in recent years in getting China to act in greater
conformity with international rules and norms in this area. They've joined
the Non-Proliferation Treaty; they have agreed to phase out nuclear
cooperation with Iran; not to export ground-to-ground missiles to any
country; and to abide by the UN arms embargo against Iraq. We have no
reason to conclude that China has undertaken actions inconsistent with
these commitments.
We are concerned, in many respects, about certain Chinese entities that may
provide technology - especially to Iran and Pakistan - and we have made
those concerns made to the Chinese leadership at the highest levels,
including most recently in Premier Zhu's visit. We will continue to work
with China to bring its policies and practices more and more in line with
international norms.
With respect to North Korea, we are concerned by reports that North Korea
may be seeking materials from China. We've raised these concerns with China
directly, and it's a matter we're following extremely closely.
QUESTION: What do we think North Korea is trying to get?
MR. RUBIN: We do have concerns that they are seeking certain technology -
materials called "specialty steel" that can be used in their missile
program. We have heard reports to that effect; we're concerned by those
reports. We've raised this issue directly with the Chinese and we're going
to be following it very closely.
QUESTION: Would it be appropriate at this time for the State Department
to either rebuke, sanction or demarche China for these strategic spying
activities?
MR. RUBIN: As you know, that's a matter under investigation, and the
White House has spoken to that extensively so I don't have any further
comment.
Let me just give you one announcement. On March 16, 1999, the United States
and North Korea reached agreement on American access to the underground
construction in Kumchang-ni. A US team of technical experts will arrive in
North Korea May 18. The purpose of this visit it to remove fully US
concerns about the nature of this site and about the activities there.
In advance of this visit, US special envoy Ambassador Charles Kartman will
visit Pyongyang May 13 and 14 in connection with the visit to Kumchang-
ni.
QUESTION: Thank you.
(The briefing concluded at 1:45 P.M.)
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