James P. Rubin, Department of StateSpokesman

June 6, 1999

MR. RUBIN: Tomorrow we arrive about 7:00 a.m. There’s a working lunch of the ministers between 11:30 and 12:30. There’s a G-8 working ministerial between 1:00 and 3:30. Then she’s likely to have additional meetings including with the leaders of the Rambouillet Kosovar Albanian delegation.

Late in the afternoon, early evening—I won’t be able to give you firm times for a lot of this stuff and let me make also the point that this is one of those trips where the schedule is not firm on anything other than the next day and so if for your planning purposes we give you information about a scheduled stop that comes off, we’d hope you’d respect the fact that there is no firm plan for anything now other than this day and Bonn tomorrow and the return to Bonn on Wednesday for the G-8 Ministerial that is preparatory for the G-8 Summit, meaning it will deal with other issues—globalization, non-proliferation, economic issues. So that is the schedule.

As far as what’s going on, let me say that the objective for the meetings tomorrow is for the Secretary to work with her ministerial colleagues to develop as quickly as possible, an acceptable Security Council resolution that embodies the agreement that Milosevic accepted. We want to move very quickly on that. We always envisaged a Security Council resolution endorsing and adopting the peacekeeping role that NATO will play and so we want to move on that very quickly. Similarly, we want to move with the other G-8 Ministers on getting a civilian administration plan organized so that as soon as the military peacekeeping force moves in we can at least get the civil administration organized as close as possible to the military organization.

Thirdly, in her meetings with the Kosovar Albanian leaders, she will be basically briefing them on the agreement and why it meets all of NATO’s terms and conditions, explaining to them that contrary to a lot of misleading propaganda coming out of Belgrade, there is nothing that has been agreed that is worse for the Kosovar Albanians than the Rambouillet Accords. The only thing that is definite is that the numbers of Serb forces are far, far, far below what was envisaged in the Rambouillet Accords which involved thousands of Serb military and police forces staying in Kosovo. Now we’re talking about small numbers of hundreds returning after their departure and they would have no operational responsibilities. They would be symbolic only. That is the most concrete reason why it is better for them than the Rambouillet Accords in addition to the fact that the NATO force will be far, far larger -- 50,000 or so—rather than the 28,000 or so envisioned at that time.

Beyond that, and this is extremely important, I know I’ve talked to some of you individually, but before anybody puts in their news organizations’ papers or wires or on television, things the Serbs say about this agreement, I’d ask you to look at it. And if you look at it very carefully all it has is a bunch of principles. From our standpoint, these principles affirm the idea that what political arrangement it follows from this deployment of forces and withdrawal of Serb forces can only get better for the Kosovar Albanians, it cannot get worse.

And I brought my little copy of the Rambouillet Accords and I want to read the famous clause that the Serbs are spinning as having some significance. Here it is: "Three years after the entry into force of this Agreement, an international meeting shall be convened to determine a mechanism for a final settlement for Kosovo..." Meaning we’ll have a meeting at which time we may decide something. "...on the basis of the will of the people, opinions of relevant authorities, each Party’s efforts regarding implementation of this Agreement, and the Helsinki Final Act, and to undertake a comprehensive assessment of the implementation of this Agreement." Meaning there’s a bunch of inputs, there’s no presumption of how this will turn out. This particular clause was the reason why the Kosovar Albanians were reluctant to sign because they had wanted that this clause would presume independence. Because it did not presume independence they went through a very difficult struggle before they decided that this was as much as they were going to get and then they accepted it. I’m sorry to bore you with this detail but I’ve seen it in a number of news organizations, the Serb notion that somehow these principles in number five of the Agreement, I believe it’s number five, are somehow, better for the Serbs than the Rambouillet Accords and nothing could be further from the truth.

So the three points to sum up are Security Council resolution as expeditiously as possible, civilian implementation arrangements as quickly as possible, consultations with the members of the Kosovar Albanian delegation on what is contained in the Agreement. And equally important, get it clear from them that we expect them to not provoke any withdrawing Serb forces or obstruct any withdrawing Serb forces and to follow through on their commitment to act on the demilitarization front, consistent with the Rambouillet Accords. That’s my long opening speech.

QUESTION: (Question about Ivanov)

MR. RUBIN: It may be a bilateral. We have one that could well happen tomorrow.

QUESTION: Who are the members of the Kosovar Albanian delegation? MR. RUBIN: Thaqi, Rugova, and Qosja. Those are the three. The three of the four, for those of you who were at Rambouillet, there was a co- chairmanship of four people—Thaqi, was the chairman, Rugova, Qosja and Suroi were the other members. Suroi’s whereabouts are still unknown to us at this time.

QUESTION: How do you spell it?

MR. RUBIN: Q-O-S-J-A. I’ll have to check that for you. QUESTION: ...that the Russian Foreign Minister was angry the bombing continued and that’s why he put off the meeting between the Foreign Minister and...

MR. RUBIN: I’m not...well we expect there to be a meeting with Ivanov. Let me just say with respect to comments by the Russian Foreign Minister or others, the Russians have never supported the bombing and every day of this air campaign they have expressed their strong opposition to the bombing. The fact that Russians continue to express their opposition to the bombing does not come as a surprise to us. QUESTION: (inaudible)

MR. RUBIN: The Serbs will either decide to comply with and implement the arrangement that they made or they will renege on the arrangements they made. And we cannot know the answer to that as you know all of us have been extremely and carefully cautious about what will result from the agreement that Milosevic made with Chernomyrdin and Ahtisaari because of our long experience in dealing with the Serbs. We have not said that this is a breakthrough. We’ve said that the Agreement itself is a step forward but a breakthrough will only occur when it is complied with and implemented. What happens in the military-to- military talks is not something I nor any of us intends to be commenting on in the coming days.

QUESTION: (inaudible)

MR. RUBIN: This is a decision for the Serbs to make, whether they will comply and implement the agreement they’ve signed and if they do so we can go forward with the pause and a peaceful solution. If they do not, we cannot.

QUESTION: (inaudible)

MR. RUBIN: I have no comment on this other than to just say the Russians played a constructive role in going with Mr. Ahtisaari to Belgrade and reaching the agreement that embodies NATO’s terms and conditions.

QUESTION: Can there be a Security Council resolution before the military-to-military talks complete and the bombing has stopped? MR. RUBIN: I’m not going to speculate or any of us are going to speculate on the timing of any of these activities. This is an extremely important issue. We want to make sure we get all of the details right. We want to move forward as expeditiously as possible on the resolution, I’m not going to speculate on time. QUESTION: Jamie, people had been working on a draft, presumably for some time, so is it hoped you can wrap it up tomorrow? MR. RUBIN: As I just indicated, I’m not going to speculate on timing of a Security Council resolution other than to say that we want to work it as quickly as possible. Key ministers will be in Bonn tomorrow, key ministers will have a decisive role to play on whether the resolution passes and how quickly it passes and that is one of the issues we’ll be discussing.

QUESTION: If the military talks break down or collapse or something would her schedule change this week?

MR. RUBIN: There are two meetings that I know are planned for. One is the day tomorrow, two is the G-8 preparatory Foreign Ministers meeting on Wednesday. We are expected to go to Macedonia at some point. QUESTION: Not Bulgaria or Romania?

MR. RUBIN: We are expected to go to Macedonia at some point and possibly other front line states.

QUESTION: Any word on the Russians in the peacekeeping force?

QUESTION: Is the meeting actually in Bonn tomorrow? MR. RUBIN: Yes, I think we’re keeping our rooms for three days because we go back to Cologne for the other meetings, the preparatory, because that’s where the G-8 Summit is, the preparatory meeting will be in Cologne.

QUESTION: Just one other question to clear up this whole business about if it’s better or worse than Rambouillet. The agreement as it was published seems...reaffirms the territorial integrity... MR. RUBIN: I can find several places in the Rambouillet Accord that does that as well.

QUESTION: So in your view this does not rule out eventually independence?

MR. RUBIN: We don’t support independence. The three-year review clause in the Rambouillet Accord. We don’t support independence we’ve said that, the three-year review clause in the Rambouillet Accords did not presume an outcome of that result. So there is nothing about the principles in the Ahtisaari-Chernomyrdin agreement that is less for the Kosovar Albanians than a meeting in which there would be several inputs because we’re talking about an interim solution and we’ve always been talking about an interim solution and so anyone who, especially....and we’ve always been talking about an interim solution so anything that presumes why, and this is primarily coming out of Belgrade, by the same people who said there was no ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, are saying that this somehow improves on the political arrangements at Rambouillet when there is no evidence to justify that.

QUESTION: You’ve said yourself many times during the briefings over the last couple of months that the fact that the Serbs were doing what they were doing to Kosovar Albanians would make it very difficult, make it increasingly difficult for this part of Serbia to remain part of Serbia.

MR. RUBIN: I’ve said that Milosevic was taking actions that decreased his claim to have authority to operate in Kosovo. And as you’ve now seen we’re envisaging a 50,000-person strong force that is going to run Kosovo along with an international provisional administration that will run Kosovo pending a political agreement. And so if anything, he is worse off and what he’s definitely worse off with regards to the presence of Serb forces which present the most compelling and real and practical ability for them to control events that these 5,000 forces that could have been there, will not be there and only small symbolic presence will be there.

QUESTION: Do you want the Security Council resolution to make explicit the temporary nature of any political arrangements? MR. RUBIN: We would expect the Security Council resolution to track the G-8 principles, and the NATO conditions and they all basically talk about principles for future resolution of this conflict but say that pending that, there should be an international provisional administration. We do not expect the Security Council resolution to make any decisions about what would happen after a provisional administration because again that would be subject to discussion and talks after a long period of time in which the Kosovar Albanians would have the opportunity to live, and this will be clear in the Security Council resolution, with self-government pending the political final settlement. So they will get self-government under the provisional administration, we will be looking to create that for them, while there’s a provisional administration and NATO is protecting Kosovo and the security of Kosovo and then the future will be, what we call in the government, "TBD."

QUESTION: Presumably all of the countries attending this will have some kind of a draft with their ideas about the resolution including the U.S. Have you seem any of the others? Are there any major differences?

MR. RUBIN: All the countries of the G-8 have been working on a resolution, elements of a resolution, all along. We have been working obviously more closely with our closest allies about this, but there are elements of a resolution, drafts of a resolution that are quite far along and have been for some time but whether the ministers are able to overcome the differences that always exist or there is a desire on the part of all countries to move rapidly to a resolution is what we’ll know more about tomorrow.

QUESTION: What differences are there, how serious are they?

MR. RUBIN: I’m not going to comment on that.

QUESTION: ...a couple of details about the resolution. MR. RUBIN: For some you’ll roll your eyes at the detail for others you’ll be fascinated and interested in all the wordings. I don’t expect it to go into much more real detail than all the various documents that you’re familiar with, namely the G-8 principles, the Ahtisaari-Chernomyrdin agreement.

QUESTION: For example, on the peace force, would it stipulate NATO, would it stipulate....

MR. RUBIN: No that’s different than a mandate. A mandate is what its job is. I wouldn’t necessarily...we don’t know when the Russians are going to want to do the necessary planning to come up with an arrangement that is analogous to the Grachev-Perry arrangement for Bosnia and if they will we’ll be open to that, we’d like to see them participate. We think a way can be found for there to be a unified command and yet the Russians will not have to be under formally a NATO commander.

QUESTION: And they don’t like the Grachev-Perry formula? MR. RUBIN: They’ll have to speak for themselves. That’s a formula we are prepared to work on.

QUESTION: Is there going to be a time limit on this provisional administration? Will there be a period of years that are attached to it?

MR. RUBIN: I don’t believe so. I think it would be provisional pending a political solution but I’ll check that. It’s a good question. QUESTION: You spoke about the preparatory meeting being on Wednesday.

Is it in fact Wednesday and Thursday?

MR. RUBIN: The EU Summit preparatory will be Thursday. There’s a US- EU Summit, that’s why the Germans are running everything. They’re running the EU, they’re running the G-8 and I think at (inaudible). QUESTION: (inaudible)

MR. RUBIN: Bonn, probably at the Petersburg. The same place as before. Tomorrow’s talks will all be at Petersburg. QUESTION: How about Albright’s talks with the KLA? Will they be at the same place?

MR. RUBIN: The DCM’s residence.

QUESTION: (inaudible)

MR. RUBIN: At some point after the KLA, as soon as possible thereafter, they’ll be a briefing. Maybe 6:30 or 7:00, we’ll have some press arrangements for that.

QUESTION: Any chance of more meetings Tuesday between the G-8 Foreign Ministers?

MR. RUBIN: I’m giving you what’s on the schedule, two ministerial level meetings - lunch and a meeting. I’m giving you the Kosovar Albanian leadership, possibly a bilateral with Ivanov, beyond that I don’t have anything to offer.

QUESTION: What’s on the agenda for tomorrow. Will reconstruction be? MR. RUBIN: ...civilian administration, reconstruction have some analogous parts, I wouldn’t rule out that would be discussed. QUESTION: Since we all know that the G-8 principles are much broader than what NATO agreed to separately, why is it necessary that the Security Council resolution to include both when obviously they would want more specificity in it?