U.S. Aid to Continue for Balkans

Feb. 2, 2001 -- Kosovo Albanian leaders, with others from the Balkan region, came to Washington for a first meeting with new U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Powell assured the foreign leaders that the United States would not "cut and run" from the Balkans as part of a global reviewof U.S. forces— and he would not do so without consultation with European allies, although the policy is under review.

The State Department also warned rioting ethnic Albanians to "cease immediately" their violent demonstrations against peacekeepers in Kosovo. The pronouncements came as two leaders from the area talked with Secretary of State Colin Powell about fears the United States might withdraw from the NATO-led force trying to keep peace in theethnically divided region.

The pronouncements came as two leaders from the area talked withSecretary of State Colin Powell about fears the United States mightwithdraw from the NATO-led force trying to keep peace.

Powell was said to have told Macedonian President BorisTrajkovski and Romanian Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana in separatemeetings that the U.S. policy in the region was under review butthat there was no immediate plan for a U.S. pullout.

Geoana is the current chairman of the 54-nation security watchdog Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The United States is a member of this organization, and Powell and Geoana most likely will be working together more in the future.

"The secretary said to him what he said in testimony andelsewhere: He's not looking to cut and run," State Departmentspokesman Richard Boucher said after Powell met with Geoana of Romania.

President George W. Bush said late last month that he sought to allay fears of a swift U.S. exit. He said: "I have never said upon swearing in, we'll pull out of the Balkans. I've always said we will work in consultation with our European allies to convince them that they need to carry more of the peacekeeping role."Fears Mounting About U.S. Role

European allies have been worried about statements made duringthe election campaign by President Bush and key foreign policyadvisers suggesting Europe was not shouldering enough of thepeacekeeping burden in Kosovo and Bosnia.

Though 85 percent of the Balkan peacekeepers already areEuropeans, Bush said in October that he would "very much like toget our troops out" of the Balkans, a prospect opposed both byNATO allies and by Kosovo's ethnic Albanians and Bosnia's Muslims,whom the peacekeepers were sent to protect.

Kosovo is run by the United Nations, and NATO peacekeepers aredeployed there as part of a peace deal that ended a 1999 NATObombing campaign. That drive sent Serb forces from the provinceafter a crackdown on ethnic Albanians under former YugoslavPresident Slobodan Milosevic.

Before his meeting with Powell, Trajkovski said theadministration must continue its peacekeeping role in the regionbecause "it's not only necessary, but it's morally right."

But completely removing U.S. forces would cut NATO's ability todeter violence in the region, he said.

"It is not time," Trajkovski said.Milosevic Under Round-the Clock Surveillance

Milosevic still lives in virtual self-imposed house arrest in the "White House," the official residence of the Yugoslav president. He has moved his assets and part of his family to Moscow, after failing to establish a possible exile bolt-hole in China.

His powerful wife Mirjana Markovic and his son and daughter go to Moscow often, leading authorities to believe that he may try to leave the country.

Unlike Milosevic, the man who ousted him, Vojislav Kostunica, prefers his modest downtown apartment that he shares with his wife.Pressure to Seek Out War Criminals

The new Serb regime finds itself under immense pressure to hand over Milosevic and other war crimes suspects believed to be hiding out in Serbia, including Bosnian Serb political and military leaders Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic.

The European Union and the United States have made it clear to the new regime that huge amounts of development and reconstruction aid depends on whether or not they hand over Milosevic and the others. Justice Minister Vladan Blatic now says a new law is being prepared which could make this possible.

The other condition is a solution for Kosovo, where British and French troops face a fourth day of confrontation with angry ethnic Albanians and Serbs in the divided town of Kosovo Mitrovica.Group Demands Arrest of Solana

The party still backing ousted Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic is demanding the arrest on charges of "war crimes" of Javier Solana, the former NATO secretary general and current EU foreign policy chief, when he visits Belgrade on February 8th.

Arrest warrants were issued under the Milosevic regime for Solana, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, U.S. President Bill Clinton, French President Jacques Chirac and others. They have yet to be revoked by the new opposition-led government that has only just taken office.

A Milosevic-era court sentenced Solana and 13 other western leaders to 20 years in jail. Serbia's new Minister of Justice Vladan Blatic has described those sentences as "nonsense, a legal farce and a comedy unprecedented in a modern justice system," but the sentences stand nonetheless.

Attack was always the best means of defense for Milosevic, who now finds himself under 24-hour surveillance ordered by the new regime as it debates whether to bring him to trial in Yugoslavia or hand him over to the war crimes tribunal in The Hague. ABCNEWS.com's Sue Masterman in Vienna, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.