PRESS CONFERENCE BY PRIME MINISTER OF ITALY

Press Briefing

PRESS CONFERENCE BY PRIME MINISTER OF ITALY

"We are strongly engaged in the military action that was promoted by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) because we are convinced that this action can find a solution based first of all on respect for the rights of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo and citizens of Kosovo who are Albanians", Massimo D'Alema, Prime Minister of Italy, told correspondents this afternoon at a Headquarters briefing.

Mr. D'Alema said that solution was not possible at Rambouillet, France, because, the President of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic, had rejected it. "We are convinced that force is an instrument at the service of politics, of a political solution and not an instrument to win a war against Yugoslavia." For that solution to come about it was therefore necessary for the United Nations to recover its full role.

Addressing correspondents right after a meeting with Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Mr. D'Alema said he thought it was only right that on his way to an important meeting in Washington he would visit Mr. Annan, whom he had met some days ago at the European Summit held in Brussels.

Mr. D'Alema stressed he wanted to encourage the Secretary-General to continue with his efforts to find a political solution to the crisis in Kosovo. "I am convinced that this political solution will come about through the actions of the United Nations", he added.

He said the question of refugees and humanitarian emergency relief had also been discussed and his country was fully committed to tackling that issue in a very special role. He expressed great concern over refugees who might be involved in the conflict. That risk was particularly high at the border between Albania and Kosovo. Other possible initiatives to provide relief were also discussed because of the difficulties encountered in helping and providing relief services to those refugees who were still in Kosovo and in the mountains.

A correspondent asked Mr. D'Alema if he saw resolution of the Kosovo crisis in the short-term or a long-term? The Italian Prime Minister said that "to give a precise answer to that question we would have to know what is going on in Milosevic's mind -- he holds the key to this answer". However, he believed that the solution was closer today than it was before the military action. There was now a need to combine the pressure of military action with a political initiative in order to find a solution as soon as possible in a way that "we want".

Asked about his opinion of the NATO decision to go ahead with a ground troop advance into Kosovo, Mr. D'Alema said "this option is not one of the political decisions that we are called on to take". NATO was an organization

that had military and defence purposes and therefore had to update all the possible scenarios. The ground troop advance option was, however, not one that was on the table.

"It is not one of the things we're going to take a decision on, so it would be useless to create the idea of some non-existent conflict about a non- existent issue at a time when we must show the utmost solidarity and cohesion within NATO", he continued. The Alliance was involved in a very difficult military and political operation and it was not a good idea at the present time to develop such a scenario on the basis of newspaper articles.

A correspondent wanted the Italian Prime Minister to be more specific about the role of the Secretary-General in the Kosovo conflict. Mr. D'Alema said it was not up to him to decide what the Secretary-General might or must do. What he wanted to do today was to express to Mr. Annan full support for all the initiatives he intended to take.

Responding to a question on whether Italy's sharp criticisms of the United Nations aid operations in Albania two weeks ago still existed, Mr. D'Alema said there had been some degree of unpreparedness when faced with such a major humanitarian emergency. "We were all unprepared for it and to some extent maybe Italy bore the burden before others did." That had, however, occurred during the first stage. Now there was a very good degree of cooperation.

When questioned about the idea floating around on the proposed oil embargo against Yugoslavia and asked for Italy's position on that issue, he said that there was agreement in the European Union that the Union would take that decision. The Union had also spoken and appealed to countries that were not its members but bordered Yugoslavia to share the embargo decision.

Answering a question raised on Mr. Milosevic "agreeing" to an international presence in Belgrade, he said that there was not enough knowledge about the content of the "agreement" to express an opinion. It was just a statement and one that "we want to look into and that we are interested in looking into. But it is too early to give and opinion", he added. What was not clear yet was the nature of the international force, whether it was military or civilian. Since that was a contentious issue, without clarification it was therefore difficult to give an opinion.

The Prime Minister was asked about his reaction to the bombing of President Milosevic's residence earlier today and whether he was worried about the bombing of non-military targets. He said there was concern because the bombing must be developed in such a way that any damage to the civilian population was reduced as much as possible and in the greatest possible way. In this specific case, however, based on information received from NATO, what had been targeted was a bunker that held command structures, and there were

Italy Press Conference - 3 - 22 April 1999

such command structures in the area -- that was the information provided by NATO.

Asked if Italy had a preference for a NATO or United Nations led force in Kosovo as a potential political solution, he said such a technical discussion about the character of the force that should be present in Kosovo was at this moment very premature. "Since we are thinking about a peacekeeping force -- one that should be the result of accords and agreements -- clearly this force should be under the aegis of the United Nations." As to its composition, of course, the need for the military efficiency of such a force would have to be considered. Right now it was not such a good idea, however, to get into a discussion which would have no meaning but to make the search for an agreement more difficult.

Mr. D'Alema said the important thing was that "we want a force that is operational, that functions and that includes the Russian Federation, Ukraine and other countries with Christian Orthodox religions".

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