As Moscow faces its most intensive week of diplomacy in decades Russian officials have come up with some undisclosed "new ideas" on how to solve the Yugoslav crisis.
The US Deputy Secretary of State, Mr Strobe Talbott, arrived in Moscow yesterday for talks today with the Russian special envoy, Mr Viktor Chernomyrdin. The UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, is due later this week, as are the Canadian and Greek Foreign Ministers.
Mr Chernomyrdin, who is still claiming that President Mr Slobodan Milosevic had agreed a military presence in Kosovo, held a series of meetings with aides yesterday in preparation for the talks.
The independent Interfax news agency quoted him as saying that Russia had come up with some ideas that could serve as a starting point for talks with NATO representatives. He declined to elaborate, but it was announced that Russia's Foreign Minister, Mr Igor Ivanov, was likely to visit Britain early next month.
Britain is regarded in Moscow as by far the most hawkish of the NATO countries on the Kosovo question. So far, at least, the formerly suave and urbane Mr Ivanov has made the most hawkish anti-NATO statements of any Russian official. He claimed at one stage that the United States, through NATO, wanted to impose its will on the rest of the world.
Mr Chernomyrdin will travel to Strasbourg tomorrow to give details of his peace initiative to the Council of Europe, and he has also received an invitation from the German Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schroder in another indication that Russia could play a key role in solving the crisis.
On Sunday night, however, President Clinton made it clear by telephone to President Yeltsin that the conditions in NATO's ultimatum to President Milosevic were not negotiable.
Russia would appear, therefore, to have very little leeway in negotiations, and the speaker of the State Duma, Mr Gennady Seleznyov, from the more moderate wing of the Communist Party, said he now believes that Russia's negotiating role is coming to an end.
There was relief in Moscow yesterday when it was indicated that NATO's policy on stopping oil supplies from reaching Yugoslavia would not include the turning back of Russian ships in international waters.
A new treaty which would include Yugoslavia in the existing Slavic union between Belarus and Russia will be ready by June 1st, the Russian minister in charge of the Commonwealth of Independent States said yesterday
Patrick Smyth adds from Lux- embourg:
EU foreign ministers yesterday imposed from Friday a ban on the export of oil or oil-based products to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
And they intensified a series of other sanctions already in place. Member-states and sporting organisations are "encouraged" not to organise events involving the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. (See also page 19.)
Ministers invited the moderate Kosovan leader, Mr Ibrahim Rugova, to address their next meeting. Mr Rugova currently appears to be under house arrest in Yugoslavia. And the meeting sent a strong pledge to the "democratically elected government of Montenegro" to help its people face up to economic the burdens placed on it by the crisis.
Ministers also agreed to start work on planning for a long-term stability pact for the Balkans.
