The Yugoslav President, Mr Slobodan Milosevic said yesterday that "faced with [NATO] aggression", Yugoslavia "has only one option: to defend itself". "The aggression is justified by saying it cares about human rights, but all human rights and international law standards have been broken," Mr Milosevic said after meeting the Belarus President, Mr Alexander Lukashenko.
"To make the irony even more, the escalation of aggression has been justified in the name, as they say, of the NATO credibility," Mr Milosevic, quoted by Tanjug news agency, said.
"By killing, one can get only the credibility of murderers," he said.
More than 900,000 people from Yugoslavia need urgent humanitarian aid as a result of the NATO air strikes, the Deputy Labour and Health Minister said, as quoted by Tanjug.
Since the bombing began on March 24th, "more than 900,000 persons have gone without work or shelter," Mr Maksim Korac said in a letter to international aid organisations that have stayed in Belgrade, the agency reported.
Mr Korac called on aid agency representatives to inform their superiors, and notably Mr Cornelio Sommaruga, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Ms Sadako Ogata. At the UN in New York, Belgrade called on the UN Security Council to "condemn act of aggression" it claimed was committed by Kosovo Albanian rebels with support of NATO and Albanian forces.
Belgrade accuses Albania of "involvement" with an attack on Yugoslavia on April 9th, near the border posts of Morina and Kosare in western Kosovo, according to a letter from the Yugoslav charge d'affaires, Mr Vladislav Jovanovic, to the UN Security Council president.
Belgrade said the posts were attacked by more than 1,000 "terrorists," or Kosovo Liberation Army rebels.