NEWS STORY: Vatican steps up efforts to halt Kosovo conflict

c. 1999 Religion News Service VATICAN CITY _ The Vatican stepped up its drive to halt the Kosovo conflict Tuesday (March 30), summoning the ambassadors of the NATO and United Nations Security Council countries to an urgent meeting with the pope’s top aides.”Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano has invited ambassadors to the Holy See […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY _ The Vatican stepped up its drive to halt the Kosovo conflict Tuesday (March 30), summoning the ambassadors of the NATO and United Nations Security Council countries to an urgent meeting with the pope’s top aides.”Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano has invited ambassadors to the Holy See from NATO member countries and the United Nations Security Council to a meeting to discuss the recent situation in Kosovo and the possible solutions which could contribute to the re-establishment of peace in the region,”Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said.

At the end of the meeting, the Vatican issued a statement saying it is”necessary that military operations cease”but did not spell out whether it was referring to NATO operations, operations by Serb forces or both.


During the meeting, the Vatican also told the NATO envoys that there is an urgent need for increased humanitarian aid to help the flood of refugees pouring into Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro as well as the internally displaced people inside Kosovo itself.

Sodano and Archbishop Jean Louis Tauran, who acts as the Vatican’s foreign minister, held a separate meeting with Yugoslavia’s ambassador to the Vatican, Dojcilo Maslovaric, earlier in the day.”The Holy See has good ideas and is doing good work,”Maslovaric said following the meeting.”I hope that sooner or later we will see the result of this work.” The Vatican envoy to Belgrade, Archbishop Santos Abril y Castello, informed the Yugoslav Foreign Minister about the Vatican peace initiative, Vatican sources said.

The Vatican effort came as Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov met with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in an apparently fruitless meeting seeking to change the political climate.

The Vatican moves followed highly unusual, impromptu talks between Pope John Paul II and Italian President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro Monday night over dinner in the Apostolic Palace. Sodano also attended.”The principal theme of the talks was the dramatic situation in the Yugoslav Republic and the search for possible ways to restore peace in the region as soon as possible,”Navarro-Valls said.

While pointedly avoiding criticism of Serbs, Kosovars or NATO, John Paul has appealed repeatedly for a return to negotiations aimed at finding a solution that respects the”rights and the culture”of both Serbs and Kosovars.

Although NATO forces attacking Serb targets are taking off from bases in Italian territory, Scalfaro, like John Paul, has denounced the recourse to”muscle”and called for a return to dialogue. Italian Prime Minister Massimo D’Alema, who leads a center-left coalition government, has insisted that Italy’s role is purely defensive, flying patrols over the Adriatic Sea and Bosnia and Macedonia and protecting NATO planes making the attacks.

Armando Cossutta, president of the small but influential Italian Communist Party, called on the pope Monday to”appeal for a truce on the occasion of the Catholic and Orthodox Easter.” Cossutta described the conflict as”illegitimate and useless”and warned that it”is bloodying the Balkans and threatening all of Europe.”The Communist leader urged the Roman Catholic pontiff to use”the only intelligent weapons _ those of politics and diplomacy _ to stop”the vicious circle of high technology aerial massacres and slaughters on the ground that accelerate the mass exodus of the population from Kosovo.””First of all, we need to block this vicious circle. First of all, we need an immediate truce,”he wrote.


The Yugoslav ambassador to the Holy See said he is”in daily contact with the Vatican Secretariat of State.”He said he was not invited to the meeting of NATO and Security Council member ambassadors but if he had been, he”would have gone willingly.” Maslovaric reiterated his government’s conditions for a return to the negotiating table _ stopping the NATO bombardment of Yugoslavia and the operations of what he called ethnic Albanian terrorists in Kosovo.

The Vatican spokesman said that on Wednesday the secretary of state will receive former Soviet Prime Minister Igor Gaidar and two other ex-ministers, who are presently in Belgrade on an unofficial peace mission.

Vatican sources speculated the Russians would deliver a letter to the pope from the Serb Patriarch Pavle.

DEA END POLK

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