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Around the World

Efforts to get rebels to attend talks fail

In another sign the talks are far from a done deal, the government in Belgrade announced that the Serbian parliament - dominated by hard-liners and ultranationalists - will decide Thursday whether the Serbs will show up for Saturday's conference in Rambouillet, France.

Hard-liners loyal to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and ultranationalists led by Vojislav Seselj hold a majority in the legislature, which last year resoundingly rejected foreign mediation of the Kosovo conflict.

Seselj repeated his opposition to the conference yesterday despite threats from NATO to negotiate peace or face allied airstrikes.

Deputy Yugoslav Premier Vuk Draskovic said, however, that "I believe our response must be 'Yes.'"

"The whole world wants us to go, and to say no would mean working to our own detriment," Draskovic said.

In the Kosovo capital of Pristina, the representative of the Kosovo Liberation Army, Adem Demaci, met for more than an hour with American and European envoys. Still, the rebels would not commit to attending the talks.

U.S. envoy Christopher Hill said Demaci promised an answer by tomorrow.

Last week, the United States and five major European powers summoned the warring sides to the conference table by Saturday to negotiate an end to the 11-month conflict. The solution was based on a U.S. formula that would grant Kosovo expanded autonomy but not independence for a three-year period.

After that, the parties could review the status of Kosovo, a province in Yugoslavia's main republic of Serbia. Ethnic Albanians make up 90 percent of Kosovo's 2 million people, and the majority want independence.

In Germany, NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana described the conference as "the last chance to reach peace in Kosovo," saying in his strongest statement yet that foreign "ground troops would need to be deployed in order to enforce any agreement."

Gen. Klaus Naumann, head of NATO's military committee, said if ground troops are necessary to guarantee security in Kosovo, "We have to accept the idea of a time span of years."

NATO has authorized Solana to launch military action in Yugoslavia if the diplomatic initiative fails to produce negotiations in a week and a settlement by Feb. 19.

The leading moderate ethnic Albanian politician, Ibrahim Rugova, has agreed to attend the conference. However, without the participation of the armed factions - the KLA and the Serb government - any conference would be doomed to failure.

With the key parties playing for time, international envoys nonetheless insisted the peace process remained on track.

"I never like to use the words 'optimism' and 'Balkans' in the same sentence, b believe we have a very good process here," Hill said.

In an interview with Associated Press Television News, Hill said during talks with the rebels last week, the KLA set no preconditions for participation in the conference but worried about security arrangements during the three-year interim period and "what comes after three years."

The Americans and Europeans have opposed independence for Kosovo, fearing it could destabilize the Balkans.

There were no reports of fresh fighting in the separatist province yesterday. However, there are ominous signs that the conflict is spreading to Kosovo's capital. Two small bombs exploded Sunday night in ethnic Albanian-run cafes in Pristina - the fourth such attacks in three days.

Fighting between ethnic Albanian separatists and Serb security forces in Kosovo has left at least 2,000 people dead and displaced more than 300,000 from their homes.

Russia backs the new international initiative to end the fighting in Kosovo, but it strongly opposes any use of military force.

"No strikes - missile or otherwise - will speed up the settlement of the problem," Russia's Foreign Ministry Igor Ivanov said.

In a strongly worded statement later yesterday, the Yugoslav government said NATO has no "right to use force against sovereign and independent countries."

Yeltsin celebrates 68th birthday

The ailing president's wife, Naina, said she was planning to cook Yeltsin's favorite treats - cabbage pie and walnut cakes - for his birthday. But because of Yeltsin's stomach ulcer, they would likely to eaten by other members of the family, Naina said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.

At the Barvikha sanitarium, Yeltsin was visited by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Alexy II, Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov and presidential chief of staff Nikolai Bordyuzha.

Television footage showed Yeltsin, clad in a gray pullover, smiling but moving slowly as he kissed longtime ally Alexy II and joined his guests in a toast with what appeared to be champagne.

Yeltsin has been abandoned by many other of his former allies, who have recently started calling for his resignation, saying that his frequent illnesses have eroded his ability to govern.

One such former ally, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, said he sent birthday greetings to the president ''as a matter of business and personal ethics,'' the Interfax news agency reported.

Yeltsin gave himself a birthday present of sorts, by checking out over the weekend from a government hospital where he had been treated for the ulcer, and moving to the sanitarium.

''But from others, Boris Nikolayevich won't hear that many sincere greetings,'' the daily Moskovsky Komsomolets remarked.

''Most of Yeltsin's allies who just recently were crowding around his throne have fled to other ships. And most ordinary citizens have by now completely forgotten when they had said anything good about the head of state.''

Yeltsin has been a part-time president for months because of a string of illnesses that include respiratory infections, pneumonia and prolonged heart trouble. Primakov has most responsibility for the government's day-to-day affairs, including the debate over Russia's struggling economy.

With public appearances and trips abroad now rare, Yeltsin mostly limits himself to formal statements on protecting Russia's constitutional freedoms.

But the president can still make waves when he thinks his wide-ranging powers are threatened - and Yeltsin's Communist opponents are still bitterly aware of his influence.

They continued impeachment hearings against him on Monday, but the parliamentary impeachment panel failed to decide whether it could prosecute the president on charges of committing genocide against the Russian people.

The opposition claims that Russia's transition to a market economy has impoverished the Russian people and led to a sharp decline in life expectancy.

An impeachment drive is unlikely to succeed because Yeltsin retains strong support in Russia's courts, which must approve any motion to oust him.

02-02-99