HEADQUARTERS PRESS CONFERENCE BY YUGOSLAV MISSION
Press Briefing
HEADQUARTERS PRESS CONFERENCE BY YUGOSLAV MISSION
20000525Following its forced removal as a legitimate member of the Peace Implementation Council on Bosnia and Herzegovina. Yugoslavia would not consider itself bound by any decisions taken by the Council, a representative of the Yugoslav Mission to the United Nations told correspondents this morning at a Headquarters press conference.
The ouster of Yugoslavia from the Council, which was set up in 1996 to oversee the implementation of the Paris and Dayton Agreements, was counter to the provisions of those accords and a flagrant violation of the 1995 Security Council resolution, Vladislav Jovanovic of the Yugoslav Mission said. The United States had insisted that Yugoslavia be removed, despite firm resistance from not only China and Russia but such Western countries as Canada, Italy, Turkey and Greece. Only the United Kingdom had supported the move. The United States had now isolated itself from the rest of the Peace Council.
Stating that China and Russia had informed the Peace Council that they would not attend that body's scheduled ministerial meeting if Yugoslavia were prevented from participating, he said any decisions then adopted by the Peace Council would have no legal validity for those two countries and his own. Any decisions taken without Russia and China would have no real meaning and could lead to a weakening in the process of implementation of the Dayton Agreement. Moreover, Yugoslavia would not consider itself bound, in particular, to any decision that led to a further revision or invalidation of the Dayton Agreement. Yugoslavia was indispensable to many aspects of the Agreements, he said, citing the issues of disarmament and succession as examples.
He called upon the Security Council to convene an urgent meeting to condemn as illegal the actions of the United States. The Security Council should declare any decision taken by the Peace Council null and void.
Asked if Yugoslavia had a plan that might produce a better response from the Security Council in terms of Yugoslav requests that a Security Council meeting be held, Mr. Jovanovic said the Council was prevented from functioning as envisioned in the Charter because of the predominant position of the United States. However, there was an increasing awareness within the Council that something was wrong.
When asked if there were any diplomatic efforts under way to resolve the problems between Yugoslavia and the United States, he said that as long as there was no change in United States policy towards his country, there was no real room for improvement. He characterized United States policy as hostile and unprincipled, and the main cause of instability in the region. United States policy was aimed at further promoting and advancing its military presence in the region. He expressed the hope that with the next United States administration, there would be a change in policy and his country would no longer be viewed as an enemy.
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