Balkan Leaders Press Cases in State Department Visits

Balkan issues dominated the State Department’s agenda Friday, with visits by Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic and Ibrahim Rugova, the leader of Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians.

Rugova said he and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell have an “understanding in general” that independence for Kosovo should be supported.

But a State Department official said the independence issue never came up during Powell’s meeting with Rugova. The department said the meeting focused on democratic development of Kosovo, a province of Serbia, Yugoslavia’s main republic. It said the U.S. supports a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for continued Yugoslav sovereignty over Kosovo.

Powell’s meeting with Djindjic covered the status of legal proceedings against former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

Djindjic said he told Powell that Yugoslav authorities are preparing an indictment against Milosevic for alleged crimes against Serbs.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Powell and Djindjic discussed the need for Yugoslavia to deal with the alleged crimes in a way that does not preclude a trial of Milosevic by a U.N. tribunal in the Netherlands. The tribunal has indicted Milosevic for abuses against Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians.

On Montenegro, Yugoslavia’s smaller republic, Boucher said Powell supports a democratic Montenegro within a democratic Yugoslavia. Boucher spoke as Djukanovic conferred with State Department officials about parliamentary elections that Montenegro plans to hold in April.

The new parliament will decide whether to hold an independence referendum.

Boucher said Powell did not meet with Djukanovic because “we don’t want to get involved in people’s elections.”