The six-nation Contact Group yesterday denounced the lack of progress by both sides in the Kosovo crisis, a day after an international deadline passed with no action.
After 3 1/2 hours of talks, a US official denounced overtures by Belgrade as "too little, too late" to address the crisis in the predominantly ethnic Albanian province in southern Serbia.
"There are some small signs of progress, but [Federal] Yugoslavia clearly falls short," he said, adding that Russia, which is traditionally pro-Serb, continued "to have different views" from the rest of the Contact Group.
The major powers had earlier this month set a 10-day deadline, which expired on Thursday, for Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw his special police and start talking to the ethnic Albanians who make up 90 per cent of Kosovo's population. Serb special police units have been involved in a bloody crackdown in Kosovo this month in which at least 80 people have died.
The British representative in the Contact Group, Mr Jeremy Greenstock, conceded yesterday: "We have seen some slight movements forward by both sides in the Kosovo dispute, who were interested in promoting political dialogue." However, he said that "by no means all" conditions agreed by the Contact Group had been met. "Ministers will want to discuss that further when they meet on March 25th [in Bonn]," Mr Greenstock said. The foreign ministers of Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia, Romania and Turkey have been invited to meet the Contact Group at that time.
Yesterday in Bonn the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, said the European Union's success in helping to defuse tensions in Kosovo showed that European nations had learned from past mistakes. Britain currently holds the EU presidency.
A demonstration against the treatment of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo will take place outside the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin next Wednesday at 12 noon.