The Washington Post

Wednesday, March 8, 2000

Annan Seeks U.N. Debate On Kosovo

By Colum Lynch

UNITED NATIONS, March 7 -- Secretary General Kofi Annan called today for the U.N. Security Council to begin debating the political status of Kosovo, and he said the United Nations must review its observer mission in southern Lebanon in light of a possible Israeli withdrawal from that area.

Confusion over the political future of Kosovo is complicating U.N. efforts to restore stability in the Balkans, Annan told a news conference. "We are operating in a very ambiguous situation, in a limbo, because the future of Kosovo's political outline has not been defined," he said.

While many of Kosovo's ethnic Albanians want independence from Yugoslavia, the United States and its NATO allies formally have adhered to the notion that Kosovo should be a multiethnic, self-governing part of Serbia, Yugoslavia's dominant republic. The alliance has decided not to set a precedent of endorsing separatism in Europe.

Annan warned, however, that both the Serbian and Albanian communities in Kosovo want the province's status to be determined. "Without that . . . both communities will have a different understanding, and it will be difficult for [the U.N. coordinator of reconstruction efforts in Kosovo] Bernard Kouchner and his team to get their job done," he said.

The secretary general also said that he hopes Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon would be linked to a wider peace agreement with Syria, the key power broker in Lebanon. But U.N. officials acknowledged today that they have begun planning for a variety of scenarios, from the enlargement of the existing U.N. force to the creation of a new multinational force, in the event of an abrupt withdrawal by Israeli forces from the nine-mile wide "security zone" that Israel has held since 1985.

The future of the 4,495-member U.N. mission in Lebanon has become a source of concern for U.N. planners, who fear they may be saddled with an ambitious new operation at a time when they are struggling with other peacekeeping missions from Kosovo to Congo and East Timor.

U.N. officials worry that they will be called upon to fill a vacuum left behind by departing Israeli troops, and to manage the return of tens of thousands of Lebanese civilians who have fled the region. U.N. officials are also concerned that Hezbollah guerrillas, who have been fighting the Israelis, will step into the security vacuum, mounting cross-border attacks against Israel and subjecting the United Nations to criticism for failing to restrain them.

U.N. officials in the region say their efforts to plan have been complicated by the unwillingness of the key parties--Israel, Syria and Lebanon--to articulate their intentions.

For instance, it remains unclear whether Israel intends to withdraw all its troops immediately from Lebanese territory or to redeploy them in stages, moving them closer to the Israeli border.