NATO Promises to Defend Countries Around Yugoslavia

Leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, wrapping up their 50th anniversary summit here, pledged Sunday to use all necessary force to defend the embattled countries on Yugoslavia’s borders if the Kosovo war infects the rest of the Balkans.

The presidents and prime ministers of the 19-nation alliance extended what NATO officials described as the next best thing to a temporary NATO membership card to the seven “front-line” states, promising that an attack on any of them would draw an immediate and overwhelming response.

NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said the assurances were not the same as NATO’s all-for-one, one-for-all alliance defense policy, “but they are very strong indeed, much stronger than we have ever done before in making clear that an attack on any of these countries would require a response.”

Leaders of the seven neighboring countries--Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina--met Sunday with the NATO chiefs. Two other nations in the Balkan region, Greece and Hungary, are full members of the alliance.

According to several officials who attended the session, all seven countries expressed support for NATO’s bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. They urged the alliance to do whatever is necessary to stop Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic’s “ethnic cleansing” in Kosovo, a rebellious province of Serbia, Yugoslavia’s dominant republic.

Several of the seven are providing direct support to the NATO campaign, officials said. About 30,000 NATO troops are stationed in Albania and Macedonia, and several thousand other allied troops are in the peacekeeping force in Bosnia. Romania and Slovenia decided last week to allow NATO warplanes to use their airspace, and Bulgaria is expected to follow suit during the next few days.

“If Belgrade challenges its neighbors as a result of the presence of NATO, we will respond,” President Clinton said.

In other developments Sunday, the 33rd day of Operation Allied Force:

* NATO’s top commander, U.S. Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark visited 3,300 troops in Albania, praising the air campaign as effective and “on time.” He said he was pleased with the NATO-led effort to ease the plight of refugees who have flooded into that country.

* Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott left for Moscow for consultations about Russia’s diplomatic offensive to end the conflict. U.S. officials said they will support the Russian effort as long as it focuses on persuading Milosevic to accept NATO’s conditions for ending the bombing: an end to “ethnic cleansing” in Kosovo, withdrawal of Yugoslav forces from the province and the return of refugees under the protection of an international peacekeeping force.

* Despite unfavorable flying weather, NATO warplanes pounded Yugoslav targets, hitting the now-familiar mix of military infrastructure and troop concentrations. A NATO military spokesman said that the planes faced little resistance and that all returned safely to their bases.

* Leaders of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army called on NATO to boost their dwindling supply of weapons and to immediately dispatch Apache helicopters to Kosovo to strike back against the Serbs. Speaking to reporters in Kukes, Albania, KLA representatives claimed sporadic successes in recent firefights with Serbian soldiers but acknowledged that their troops are badly underequipped.

* Refugees fleeing Kosovo related some of the grimmest accounts to emerge from the province so far. In Macedonia, new arrivals told relief workers of Serbian paramilitary forces entering villages, ordering residents out of their homes and opening fire on them.

* A Greek humanitarian convoy arrived in Pristina, Kosovo’s provincial capital. The six trucks each carried about 20 tons of food and medicine donated by the Greek government, according to an official with the Greek Embassy in Yugoslavia.

In their daily briefing, NATO military leaders said the Yugoslav army and the KLA continue to skirmish, especially in the rebel army’s strongholds near the Albanian border. British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook noted that Milosevic claimed last month to have destroyed the KLA but that the rebel army has not only survived but increased its operations.

In Kukes, KLA leaders said the guerrillas killed six Serbs in one recent battle, 10 in another confrontation and three in a third attack, although they offered no firm reports on casualties among their own troops.

“The thing we are urgently asking for from the NATO alliance is to give us a modern arms supply,” said a KLA military spokesman who was dressed in camouflage garb and identified himself only as Leopard 2. “At the same time, we are asking NATO to start using helicopters to strike Serb troops.”

Another KLA representative, Gani Sylaj, argued that the rebels, if properly armed by NATO, would reduce casualties among alliance soldiers once NATO decides to send ground troops into Kosovo.

“If there is any kind of hope, that hope is KLA, which is fighting daily against the Serb war machinery,” Sylaj said. “KLA was born for the people of Kosovo. It is not yet a sophisticated army. We are short of arms supplies as well as food. But still we keep our positions.”

NATO officials are reluctant to send weapons to the KLA because the alliance’s ultimate objective is to demilitarize the province, forcing the withdrawal of the Yugoslav forces and the disarming of the KLA. Moreover, weapons for the KLA would violate a U.N. Security Council arms embargo covering all of the former Yugoslav federation.

Despite some disputes over details, the 19 presidents and prime ministers of NATO completed their three-day summit expressing unanimous determination to continue the air campaign against Yugoslavia and vowing to prevail. At the same time, there was no support expressed publicly for sending NATO ground troops into either Kosovo or other parts of Yugoslavia before there is no possibility of armed resistance by Serbian troops.

“On this, the alliance leaves Washington more united even than it was when we came here,” Clinton said in remarks that marked the end of the summit.

Observed French President Jacques Chirac: “This was supposed to be the summit of the 50th anniversary of the alliance, but it has become the summit of unity, bringing us together in the fight for democracy and human rights.”

After devoting Friday to the nettlesome issue of Kosovo and Saturday to updating NATO’s strategy for the post-Cold War era, the alliance chiefs spent Sunday in meetings with leaders of the European and Central Asian countries that are attempting to cooperate with the alliance. In addition to the seven countries neighboring Yugoslavia, the list includes Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

The roster of “partner” nations includes all 14 of the former republics of the Soviet Union except Russia, which boycotted the session to protest the bombing of Kosovo. Many of the former Soviet republics are still led as independent nations by the individuals who held power during the Soviet period.

Clinton said that during Sunday’s lunch, one participant joked that there was almost a quorum of the last Soviet Politburo.

“There has been this breathtaking explosion of freedom, but the old order has not yet been replaced by a new one that answers all the legitimate needs of people not just for freedom, but also for security and prosperity,” Clinton said.

In addition to NATO’s pledge of immediate military protection to the seven front-line states, the alliance--joined by the European Union, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and international institutions such the World Bank--called for a long-term economic recovery package for the Balkans and the other countries of southeastern Europe.

A senior administration official quoted a Bulgarian representative as saying that even Serbia would ultimately benefit from the reconstruction program.

“The Bulgarian pointed out that for Serbia to ultimately choose democracy, it has to see that democracy works in the neighboring states, and ultimately, democracy and prosperity need to go hand in hand,” the U.S. official said.

As the NATO summit ended, one important loose end was left dangling.

The alliance defense ministers agreed in principle to block the sea shipment of oil and petroleum products to Yugoslavia, a step officials said would stop Milosevic’s war machine because of lack of fuel. But the ministers directed Clark, the supreme allied commander, to work out the details, including whether allied warships would be directed to stop oil tankers on the high seas and turn them away from Yugoslav ports by force if necessary.

Russia, a major supplier of oil to Yugoslavia, protested sharply. And Chirac warned that a blockade might violate international law.

But Berger said Yeltsin did not even mention the possibility of a naval blockade Sunday during a telephone conversation with Clinton that lasted about an hour.

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Times staff writer Marc Lacey in Kukes, Albania, contributed to this report.

On the Web

Extended coverage of the crisis in Yugoslavia is available at The Times’ Web site at https://www.latimes.com/yugo. Coverage includes hourly updates, all Times stories since NATO launched its attack, video clips, information on how to help the refugees, a primer on the conflict and access to our discussion group.