NATO Secretary General, Lord Robertson's Press Conference
Pristina, 4 April 2001.

…..In the Balkan region should be doing. Building a future that is not based on past resentments is a very clear message from me and from NATO …..no sound recorded….is part of NATO's adaptation to these changing times. A new democratic government in Belgrade means that the buffer zone, the zone that was to prevent the FRY forces from coming back to Kosovo, was then redundant. There is now no threat of invasion. Therefore, a phased and conditioned return to the Ground Safety Zone poses no threat to KFOR or to the people of Kosovo. We will prevent it from being used as a safe heaven for those who choose the path of violence rather than the path of politics and diplomacy. We're not going to allow that phased and conditioned process to be held hostage, but we will still expect that the behavior of those who enter the Ground Safety Zone will be proportionate and reasonable and will conform to the conditions laid down by the commander of KFOR. The Ground Safety Zone has served its purpose but our mission has not changed. In relation to the problems on the border with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, KFOR is playing its part in stopping the supply and reinforcements of any of the armed extremists who are operating against the government in Skopje. We have hundreds of extra troops now policing that border and they are achieving results. A hundred and fifty people were detained last week alone, arms are being seized on a daily basis and act of patrols and intensified surveillance make sure that illegal movement in that area is impossible to hide and will not be tolerated. It is critically important that the Kosovar leadership speak out against the armed extremists. That was my message, the message of the 19 Ambassadors of the NATO Council today to the Interim Administrative Council and to the much wider Kosovo Transition Council. Everybody of all ethnic groups and the ethnic Albanians in particular has the responsibility for using their influence to end any connection with the armed extremists. These people are subverting the interest of the ethnic Albanian community. These people are destroying the future prospects for Kosovo. They must be marginalized, they must be isolated and they must stop their violent activities. They are doing huge damage to the cause of the Kosovars in general. It is difficult for the outside world to make distinctions between the genuine decent majority of Kosovar Albanians and a hand full of people allegedly crusading in their name for some mythical instincts. The road of violence in the Balkans has been a dead-end road, a road leading only to further violence, to misery and to death. Surely that lesson should have been engrained to every ethnic group in this part of the world. It is time for the Kosovar leadership to show leadership and to make sure that the men of violence are marginalized and driven out of the political process. Kosovo must build a multi-ethnic democracy now, turn its back on the violence and the extremism which has battled the past. This bright new weather that we're seeing here in Kosovo is quite different to the weather of two years ago, I can tell you since I became an expert in every tiny variation in the weather over Kosovo two years ago just now. So maybe the sunshine in April is an inauguration of a new era before us. I hope so and I remain optimistic. Can I just finally say a word about Kerem Lawton, the AP journalist who tragically was killed last week on the Kosovo side of the border with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. I think he shows what commitment is still required by so many people who carry the message of events in dangerous parts of the world. He was somebody who was well known for having tenacity, having bravery. It's sad and tragic that his life was to be ended yet another incident in the Balkans rich history of tragedy.

Questions

Q: Mr. Robertson, you do say that you have urged the Albanian leadership in Kosovo to make them influence the armed guerrilla group to stop the activities, to cease the fire there. In this sense, have you urged the Macedonian government to start immediate dialogue with the Albanian representatives in Macedonia and do you support in this sense the constitutional changes in Macedonia?

LR: I strongly support the idea of resuming and intensifying the dialogue that already existed between the Macedonian Albanians and the Macedonian Slavs. The government in Skopje is committed to that process. I welcome that, I encourage that and I believe that. Last night I sat at a table with president Trajkovski on one side of me and Mr. Xaferi, the leader of the DPA on the other side. At other tables the leaderships of the other political parties sat with NATO Ambassadors as well. I can tell you that the dialogue is not just starting, it is ongoing. Even a social occasion hosted by the NATO ambassadors was used for continuing to talk about the changes that are going to take place, that it is agreed are necessary to take place. The reforms to the institutions in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia are not driven by the men of violence, nor are they driven by some exaggerated concession from one group to the other. They are driven by the necessity of Macedonia wishing to join the European Union and NATO and having to obey the established standards of both these organizations. So that dialogue is taking place and it was interrupted by the violence. It is affected detrimentally by the violence, the violence is a bad ingredient into a discussion on reform that needs to take place and that is going to take place.

Q: You mentioned the shelling that killed the journalist and a couple others. Macedonia has said that their military was not responsible for that. I know KFOR has an investigation going. What are the results of that investigation?

LR: First of all, let me say that by singling out the journalist, I wasn't in any way diminishing the tragedy for the other casualties in that particular incident. President Trajkovski and I are determined that we will get to the truth of this matter. As a consequence, we set up a joint commission. Ambassador Iffer(?)who is my personal representative in Skopje will represent me. The special security adviser of president Trajkovski, Mr. Dimitrov will represent him, and will have some military advisers. I think yesterday's press announcement was premature because the joint commission will look at the evidence that has been collected by both sides to try and make sure that we find out what happened and we make sure that any such incidents does not happen again.

Q: After these acts that the Macedonian authorities have taken against the NLA. Do you think the clashes are over?

LR: I believe that the Macedonian authorities acted with great restraint and great proportionality. There were a very small number of casualties which is quit amazing in itself. I hope it is over, and I hope the people of violence have realized that they are marginalized and isolated, not just in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, but they are marginalized and isolated throughout the world. And that is the lesson for anybody who seeks to ally themselves with these people. They too will be isolated. When you get a position where America and Russia, the whole of the UN Security Council, the whole OSCE council, the NATO council, practically every government in Europe and North America. The Albanians in Albania, the Albanians in Kosovo and the Albanians in southern Serbia have all denounced the activities of those who use bullets and not the ballot box in the hills above Tetovo. You realize that theirs is a lost cause. They should put down their arms and return to the democratic process. I hope they will do that. I hope they've learned the lesson and in the next few weeks they will get that lesson very substantially from other quarters as well.

Q: Yesterday you met with Albanian politicians in Macedonia. Next week Macedonia is suppose to sign an agreement as an EU associate member. What is your opinion of the Albanian leaders, especially the main one, Mr. Xaferi, who said that if dialogue doesn't start this week and come to some results, Albanians will not accept, and they will not go to Brussels to attend the signing of this agreement, and he will withdraw from the coalition in the Macedonian Government?

LR: Can I just make the point that the dialogue has started. A round table suggested by Dr. Solana of the European Union is being convened, under the chairmanship of the president of the Macedonian parliament. That is actually happening at the moment. President Trajkovski has written a letter, a copy of which he sent to me, to all the political parties in Skopje, in the parliament. All the political leaders from Skopje were at the dinner last night. All of them committed to that dialogue and the round table discussions on reform. And these are reforms that will be required if Macedonia is going to make progress towards becoming a member of the European Union. So, the ceremony on the 9th of April, which will be attended by all of the representatives of the people of Macedonia, will be a very important milestone in the history of the country. But the dialogue is already going on. As I said, I hope that I contributed to it. General Cabigiosu was at the same table last night, we were all involved in a discussion about the various issues that are going to be involved in that round table. We're not part of the round table, nor should we be. The EU is acting as a facilitator and not as a mediator. The future of Macedonia is in the hands of all the Macedonians, whether they are of Slavs, Albanians or any other origin. And if they want to avoid a bloodbath, the kind of bloodbath that people saw here, then they've got to get around that table and determine the destiny of their country. They've got the opportunity, they've stated talking. I look forward to the results.

Q: Before all this fighting started in Macedonia, were you aware that the Albanians there were treated as second class citizens, that they didn't have the same rights as the Macedonians and that the Constitution of Macedonia was changed in 1991. According to the 1974 Constitution Albanians were equal to the Macedonians and the others. What makes you believe now that, what you consider as talks or negotiations or whatever they are will succeed? There have been several talks in Macedonia. 

LR: I'm convinced they will succeed because I know the people concerned are committed to a process of dialogue and to a process of reform. I know that they want to be members of the European Union and they want to be members of NATO and to do that they must have internal stability and they must have proper recognition of the rights of minorities. There have been very substantial changes in the rights of minorities during the last ten years and the reform process that has been embarked upon now is a genuine one, a real one and it will produce results, especially in the area where Mr. Xaferi and the ethnic Albanian leadership have identify the need for change. But there will be no change if people use violence to try and achieve it. The people of the Balkans know only two worlds and that is a clear cut of recipe for disaster, for economic misery and for human tragedy. If people want a lesson in it, let them look at what happened to Arkan, who was an ethnic warrior for the greater Serbia, now dead and buried. Look at Milosevic who wanted to create a greater Serbia, now in he is in his own prison surrounded by the people that he put into that prison. That is the fate of those who get involved in the engine of hate and of ethnic nationalism. So the proper process is through the democratic process in any country as well as anything else. Reform will be driven by a country to unite in the face of an impending civil war and it will be united also by its ambition, collective ambition to be in the European Union and NATO. And I believe the people will rise to the challenge. And to be sitting in the same room last night as the whole political leadership of Macedonia was to convince me that things are changing, things are moving and there will be results to this process.

Q: My understanding is that NATO's opinion is that there is no place on the negotiation table for the extremists of NLA. I would like to know why, and if this is linked any way with the previous experience with the KLA and later with UCPMB.

LR: That is not a NATO position. That is the position inside the sovereign country. I happen to support it because I think it is right. There is a democratic process in Macedonia. People have the vote in Macedonia. There are parties representing all the minorities. The proper and correct way to deal with these things is through the democratic process. Politicy is a much better weapon than any gun that has been invented. That is the way it should be done. I expressed a strong view last night at a press conference in Skopje. I resent the comparison between the FYROM and what happened in Kosovo over the last decade. There is no comparison. In Skopje, there is a democracy. There is Parliament.There are political parties. People have a vote. The ethnic groups are represented themselves in that Parliament. That is a million miles away from Milosevic's Kosovo, and the denial of human rights. People should not be making that comparison. I tell you as somebody who knows the alliance, but as one of the leaders of the air campaign that saved Kosovo and its people, I see that people should remember we fought to save democracy. We fought to save multiethnic society. And we will continue to fight at exactly that same basis when a small country is put under threat by a bunch of armed gangsters. NATO will stand up against these people just as we stood up against Milosevic's thugs when they were here in Kosovo.

Q: I would like to ask if your investigation into the death of Kerem Lawton could find that NATO bears some responsibility for failing to prevent the cross border shelling, and if you could also comment on what measures are in place to prevent a repeat of cross border shelling from Macedonia.

LR: Well, these are not questions that you expect an answer to. I assume you only ask them because they sound good. You'll never got anybody to answer a question like that. We are investigating to find out the truth.

Q: My question is which measures are in place now?

LR: We have measures in place but you are making assumptions in the question. We are ascertaining with the Macedonian authorities what happened on that tragic day in order to make sure that it doesn't happen again. But I am not assuming anything at the present moment, whether there was cross border shelling, where the shelling took place from. The investigation will discover the facts. But I don't want to prejudge the outcome of that. I think that would be gross and unfair to do it. It would be wrong in principle to do it for the people who have been concerned.