U.S., Russia Agree to Cooperate in Kosovo

After three days and more than 35 hours of intense negotiations, U.S. and Russian officials reached an agreement Friday that will allow as many as 2,850 Russian soldiers to join the NATO-led international peacekeeping force in Kosovo.

Under terms of the accord, announced at a late-night news conference at Finland’s Presidential Palace here, Russian forces will not be allocated a sector of their own but will instead be deployed in four of the five NATO military sectors in Kosovo.

The Russians sent about 200 peacekeepers into Kosovo ahead of NATO troops last Saturday and were demanding command of their own sector in the province. They also objected to being placed under NATO command.

Friday’s agreement was signed by Defense Secretary William S. Cohen and his Russian counterpart, Igor D. Sergeyev. The two men, together with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Russian Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov, hailed the accord as having implications far beyond Kosovo and opening the door to a new era of cooperation between Moscow and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

“Our agreement recognizes the stakes that Russia and NATO share in Europe’s future,” Cohen said. “It also shows that the U.S. and Russia can work together on important security issues. As major powers, we share a responsibility to work together for peace and stability, and we have shown that we can meet that responsibility.”

Russia will be able to deploy as many as five battalions in Kosovo, divided among U.S., German and French sectors of responsibility. In addition, as many as 750 Russian soldiers will be deployed at the airport in Kosovo’s capital, Pristina, in the British sector.

Russians at the airport will take responsibility for ground operations, including security, maintenance and services such as public affairs. NATO will run all air operations at the facility.

No Russians will serve in western Kosovo, the sector under Italian command.

The approximately 200 Russian soldiers at Pristina’s airport made a surprise dash into Kosovo from Bosnia-Herzegovina last Saturday, hours before the first NATO units entered the province. The Russian presence alarmed NATO representatives and heightened tensions in the negotiations to formalize Russian participation in the mission.

According to participants, the talks’ final sticking point centered on the number of troops Russia would provide.

The agreement specifically avoided giving Russia a sector of its own, a development that U.S. officials feared might lead to a concentration of the province’s Serbian population and a de facto partition of Kosovo. Serbs, who share cultural and ethnic ties with the Russians, have long looked on Moscow as an ally.

The French control the northern areas of Kosovo, where the Serbs’ prewar population was large.

“We wanted to stay away from any appearance of turning an area over to Serbs, something that could lead to a serious situation,” a U.S. official explained.

President Clinton, attending the annual summit of the world’s leading industrial nations and Russia in Cologne, Germany, said the agreement provided “a significant range of responsibilities for the Russians, which I think are entirely appropriate and which will enhance the mission’s effectiveness.”

Asked why the Russians had not been given a sector of their own, Clinton said: “The main reason is they are actually needed in more than one sector.

“There are pockets of Serbs throughout the country, and we think it’s quite important that every effort be made to secure both the physical sites and the personal security of the Serb minority, as well as the Kosovar Albanian majority,” he said. “And we think it will give confidence to them if the Russians are in more than one sector.”

The agreement must still be confirmed by the Russia Federation and by representatives of NATO member states in Brussels. Both sides implied that this will not be a problem, even though President Boris N. Yeltsin had demanded as recently as Thursday that Russia be allocated a sector of its own.

Asked if the Russian side was acting on Yeltsin’s instructions, Ivanov declared: “If not, Marshal Sergeyev wouldn’t have signed the document today.”

A set of “agreed principles” worked out during the marathon talks here preserves NATO’s unity of command over all peacekeeping forces in Kosovo, but at the same time places Russian Defense Ministry officials within NATO’s command structure. It is a system similar to that established nearly four years ago to integrate Russian forces into the NATO-led peacekeeping mission in Bosnia, yet it is far more extensive.

To avoid coming under direct NATO command, the Russian field commander in Bosnia reported to a special Russian deputy to the NATO military commander, currently U.S. Gen. Wesley K. Clark, stationed at alliance military headquarters in Belgium. The Russian deputy worked with Clark, but on a political level reported to Moscow.

However, amid the gradual deterioration in ties between NATO and Russia, Moscow withdrew its deputy from Belgium last winter and also suspended participation in a Permanent Joint Council established two years ago to formalize and nurture NATO-Russia contacts.

With Friday’s agreement, Russia has pledged to restore its deputy at NATO military headquarters and to resume participation in the Permanent Joint Council. It also will send representatives to NATO’s Southern Command headquarters in Naples, Italy, and to the headquarters of British Lt. Gen. Mike Jackson, the commander of the peacekeeping mission within Kosovo.

Times staff writer James Gerstenzang in Cologne contributed to this report.

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Rebuilding Kosovo

The Challenge: Clearing a Minefield

Land mines placed throughout the Serbian province of Kosovo endanger troops as well terroized residents. Under terms of the cease-fire, Yugoslav forces must mark and clear the minefields, but peacekeepers are not counting on that, NATO forces are removing mines from routes into Kosovo. The mines that remain--the State Department estimates there may be millions--will be removed by humanitarian teams under authority of the U.N.

U.N. workers are warning ethnic Albanians that the mines must be removed before homes are rebuilt and fields tilled for farming, in addition to mines, there are booby traps and unexploded ordance--an estimated 5% to 10% of bombs dropped during the conflict didn’t explode. The U.S. commerical humanitarian company contracted by the State Department is expected to begin work around July 11, after the withdrawal of Yugoslav forces. Mine clearance operations will cease during winter and resume in spring.

How Mines Work

All mines are activated by pressure or tension release of a trip-wire, or command detonated. Yugoslavia is one of the world’s leading producers and exporters of antipersonnel mines, small, shallow-planted mines that cause death or injury by blast and/ or fragmentation. Antitank mines are larger and used to immobilize or destroy vehicles and their occupants.

Yugoslav antipersonnel mines are mostly plastic, but small metal parts can be spotted using a sensitive metal detector. They tend to be very small, usually only 1.5 inches deep.

Detecting and Removing Mines

The U.S. mine-detecting force will consist of six clearance teams, supported by dogs and their handlers (about 75 personnel and 12 dogs). Each team will consist of a leader, six mine removers, a medic, two dog handlers and two dogs. The mine removers might use some of these technologies.

The Process

1. Locating: Using information from maps and local sources, teams use one of the detection methods shown to locate mines.

2. Marking: Marker is planted in ground next to mine. Boundaryof field also is

3. Removing: Some teams prefer to lift mines and relocate them to a pit where they’re detonated.

4. Destroying: In most cases, mines are destroyed in place using plows or bulldozers.

The Technology

Three electronic sensors are combined in this detection setup. The disc at the end of the shaft has a metal detector and ground-penetrating radar built into it and an infrared camera is on his helmet. The eyepiece allows him to see: infraredimagery, which measures the heat contrast between the soil and a mine; the strength of an emitted electromagnetic field caused by the presence of metal in a mine; and the general shape of the mine, provided by radar.

Dogs are trained to detect the scent of explosives. Dogs can work in rough terrain that might be inaccessible to meachanical sifters and plows.

Mine-clearing plows are built to withstand explosions. Mines are plowed into a pile and then into a demolition pit, or detonate them in place.

Metal probes about 10 inches long are inserted into soil in 1-inch intervals.

The most heavily mined areas are believed to be the southern and western borders of Kosovo.

A typical plastic antipersonnel mine

Height: 15 in.

Diameter: 3 in.

Weight: 4 oz. to 5 oz.

Combination metal detector and radar

Sources: U.S. Dept. of Defense; U.S. Dept. of State; Human Rights Watch; International Campaign to Ban Landmines; Ronco Consulting Corp.; Marconi Information Systems.

Researched by JULIE SHEER / Los Angeles Times