PRESS CONFERENCE BY FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA

Press Briefing

PRESS CONFERENCE BY FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA

At a Headquarters press conference today, the Chargé d'affaires of the Mission of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Vladislav Jovanovic, presented a booklet compiled by his Foreign Ministry offering evidence that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) had used depleted uranium in its 1999 bombing campaign against his country.

The booklet, entitled “Facts on Consequences of the Use of Depleted Uranium in the NATO aggression against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999”, also speculates about the long-term consequences to the population.

"American and NATO authorities have done their best to hide this fact and to prevent such international organizations as the United Nations from learning more about the location, the quantities and the long-term consequences of the use of those weapons," Mr. Jovanovic said.

The depleted uranium was the radioactive and toxic waste of the nuclear industry, he added. Nuclear countries had a tremendous problem figuring out how to dispose of that waste. "The United States has one regional idea of how to dispose of that material -- they put it into the shells and fire those shells against the territory of the so-called 'hostile countries'."

Warning of the dangerous long-term health consequences, Mr. Jovanovic said that Dutch soldiers had been withdrawn from Kosovo because of a fear of contamination. Moreover, Italian and German soldiers imported their food and British soldiers had also been warned by their Government not to eat or drink local food and water in Kosovo. He appealed to international organizations to act urgently to protect the population and to find the financial resources necessary to decontaminate the area.

He also complained that his country's Foreign Minister had recently been denied a visa to attend meetings at United Nations Headquarters. Noting that the Yugoslav Prime Minister, the Speaker of the Parliament and now the Foreign Minister had been denied visas, he said the situation was a grave violation of both the Headquarters agreement with the Host Country, and of the Charter itself.

In response to a question, Mr. Jovanovic said his Government was not allowing observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to monitor the upcoming elections in Yugoslavia because they had discredited themselves in Kosovo. However, there would be objective foreign observers from non-NATO countries monitoring the elections.

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