TRANSCRIPT OF BACKGROUNDER
GIVEN BY MR JAMIE SHEA
IN BRUSSELS ON MONDAY, 17 MAY 1999

JAMIE SHEA:
First of all I would like to wish everybody Good Morning, and just to give
you a quick up-date on the latest activities.


First of all, as you all know, the Foreign Ministers of the European Union
are meeting in Brussels today at the EU, just a short way from here. This
is a very important meeting as far as NATO is concerned, for three reasons.
The first reason of course is that there will be a meeting with the
Russian Foreign Minister Ivanov and we hope that that will be a successful
meeting, that it will allow NATO countries in the EU, many Allies of course
are in the European Union, and Russia to work together towards a G8 process
which should also be happening this week to define a UN Security Council
Resolution. It is very important that this cooperation with Russia be
continued. The second highlight will be the work of the EU Foreign
Ministers on the stability pact, the long term vision for the south eastern
European region to be unveiled next week at the Stability Pact Conference
on the 27th in Bonn, and NATO as I have mentioned is contributing many
ideas for that and will participate in that meeting. And the third element
is a review of the situation in Yugoslavia and Kosovo, with the
participation in the meeting later today of President Djukanovic of
Montenegro and Dr Rugova, the Kosovar Albanian leader.


I would like to mention in this connection that Robin Cook, the UK Foreign
Secretary, is currently at NATO headquarters, he is meeting the Secretary
General now and he is giving him an up-date on the likely outcome of the EU
Foreign Ministers meeting, and he will be here, where I am standing, at
12.00 noon to brief you on the meeting and on Kosovo, so there will be an
extra press event today at 12.00 noon here. And afterwards Robin Cook will
be participating in the daily MOD briefing from a video link from NATO
headquarters as well.


Overnight, as you know already from the up-date that we circulated to you
earlier, we had bad weather, it affected NATO operations, in fact
three-quarters of the strike packages last night had to be cancelled as a
result of the bad weather. However, NATO aircraft were able to strike
military vehicles and troops in the open near Decane, and artillery south
of Prizren. Fixed targets were struck as well, including a radio relay
site near Kaponik and a bridge near Padina. Two airfields at Sinice and
Obrva were also targeted overnight.


These missions, even if hampered by bad weather, still nonetheless show
that the Allies are resolute, determined to prevail and determined to press
on until President Milosevic accepts the non-negotiable conditions of the
international community: to stop the killing; withdraw all of his army
and special police forces; accept the presence of an international
security force; allow the return of refugees without restrictions; and
work for a political solution, a permanent one, based on the Rambouillet
peace plan. Five conditions which of course are now fully familiar to all
of you but no less valid for that.


Let me just add that in a few moments, at 11.00 am, the North Atlantic
Council will begin its morning meeting, so a busy day here. I will just
take a few questions because I need to go to that meeting, but as I say, I
will be back to escort Robin Cook at 12.00, and obviously back with General
Jertz for the more developed operational up-date at 3.00 pm.


NICK CHILES, BBC WORLD SERVICE :
Just to clarify the numbers, you said that three-quarters of the package
had to be cancelled, is that over the full 24 hour period, and do you have
the number of sorties?


JAMIE SHEA:
First of all, that was in the 24 hour period, particularly overnight where
the weather was I understand very, very low cloud and lots of rain. And I
am able to say that the total sorties were 343, the total strike was 58 and
if you include the attacks on the air defence, the total of strike sorties
is 83. And again, for those of you who like to keep the overall picture
well on your radar screens, allied force total strikes now are at 22,246,
total strikes 5,970, and if you again add on the air defence strikes you
get 7,793. So that is where we are for the time being.


QUESTION :
Could you comment on the International Herald Tribune story on the Apache
helicopters?


JAMIE SHEA:
I took a number of questions on this topic yesterday and what I said then
is what I am going to repeat now, that the Apaches are completing their
training, they are operational but they are still doing some final
training. It is very important that they be totally ready for the mission,
it is a difficult mission and of course it is in difficult terrain and we
want the pilots to have all of the preparations that they can get. So it
is very intensive training, but those aircraft are now operational and they
will be used when the military Commanders judges that the time is right.


ANTONIO ESTEVES MARTINS, RTP:
The three men present today to the Ministers of Foreign Affairs,
Djukanovic, Rugova and Ivanov, will any of those people meet some NATO
members, the Secretary General?


JAMIE SHEA:
At the moment there are no plans for any of those gentlemen to come to NATO
headquarters, not today. As you know, the EU meeting is a very, very
intensive one indeed, there is a lot of extremely important business to
transact, and I think while they are in Brussels they are going to be very,
very busy indeed. But NATO, having said that, will do its utmost to
maintain its close contacts with Russia, the Secretary General in
particular is in contact. We have invited Dr Rugova, when he has time, to
come to NATO and I am sure he will do. And as you know our feelings
towards President Djukanovic, and his efforts to maintain under difficult
circumstances democracy in Montenegro are clear for everybody to see.