Police arrested four activists from a student-based resistance movement, Otpor, when they were in the Greek embassy last night in Belgrade, the Yugoslav capital.
Diplomats said Athens was "absolutely outraged" by the incident in which bodyguards of the Yugoslav Foreign Minister, Mr Zivadin Jovanovic, stopped the Otpor members during a party in the embassy. They asked them to show their Yugoslav identity cards and then took them out of the building, where the four were snatched by police. The four were held by Belgrade police for two hours.
The act was a slap in the face to Athens as an embassy is sovereign territory. The arrests occurred at the end of a day in which the Greek Foreign Minister, Mr George Papandreou, met officials from the regime and spoke to the leading Serbian opposition candidate for president. One reason for the visit is a deterioration in the relationship between Greece and Serbia.
Mr Papandreou is the first EU minister to visit Belgrade since the NATO bombing. He told Yugoslav President Mr Slobodan Milosevic that Europe expected him to carry out a fair election on September 24th.
Mr Papandreou spent 45 minutes talking to Mr Milosevic yesterday. He also met the Serbian President, Mr Milan Milutinovic, and the Foreign Minister. He also met the leading opposition contender in the Yugoslav presidential race, Dr Vojislav Kostunica, and Otpor members.
He pressed the European desire for there to be formal impartial observers during the election. He said he wanted further polarisation and violence avoided and an end to the direction the country had been following in the last decade.
He said Greece sought open contact with everyone: government and opposition. He said it was also important how Europe saw its relations with Yugoslavia after the vote.