NATO campaign in Kosovo not precedent for conflicts - Fischer

Nato's successful campaign in Kosovo must not be seen as a precedent for Western military intervention in conflicts, according to Germany's Foreign Minister, Mr Joschka Fischer.

However, he insisted the bombing campaign against Yugoslavia was justified as President Slobodan Milosevic's policy of ethnic cleansing was a threat to European security.

"Murder and rape are happening all over the world and they are to be condemned everywhere, not just in Kosovo. But we intervened militarily there because crimes against humanity were being committed in our immediate neighbourhood and were endangering the security of Europe.

"One cannot derive from that, however, a general duty to intervene on the part of Germany or the European states."

Mr Fischer's remarks came as EU foreign ministers met in Brussels to consider the implications of the Kosovo conflict for Europe's common foreign and security policy.

Britain and Italy suggested the creation of a permanent advisory council, made up of senior diplomats, to assist the EU's new foreign policy co-ordinator, Mr Javier Solana. This would enable the EU to react quicker to crises.

Britain's Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, called for the expansion of Europe's military capacity. He pointed out that, although Europe has more than two million men and women under arms, it had difficulties mustering just 50,000 to take part in Kfor, the UN-mandated peacekeeping force in Kosovo.

"If we want to be efficient in future crises we need a more flexible, a more mobile and a more rapid military capacity," he said.

The EU has been criticised in recent years for its failure to manage conflicts in Europe or to develop a coherent foreign policy. Its weakness in foreign policy has become more embarrassing since the introduction of the euro which provided much of the EU with a single currency and tightly co-ordinated economic policies.

"We have to change our approach and move from resolving conflicts to preventing them in the first place. Our policy must be about more than drafting texts and having group photographs taken," said the Dutch Foreign Minister, Ms Anna Lindh.

Among those who attended the foreign ministers' meeting was Mr Bodo Hombach, the German politician who has been charged with co-ordinating the Stability Pact, a multi-billion-pound reconstruction plan for the Balkans.

Western leaders have made it clear that reconstruction aid will be available to all states in the region with the exception of Serbia. It will receive no substantial help as long as Mr Milosevic remains in power.

Mr Fischer yesterday expressed confidence that the Yugoslav leader would step down sooner rather than later, and the German Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schroder, suggested that Serbia might yet join the EU.

Mr Schroder met the Yugoslav opposition leader, Mr Zoran Djindjic, in Bonn yesterday and promised that Germany would do everything possible to ensure the safe return of Serbs to their homes in Kosovo.

Mr Fischer insisted that Kfor understood that its mandate included an obligation to facilitate the preservation of a multi-ethnic Albania. He said Kosovo's future could not be built on revenge or nationalism and again ruled out partition or independence for the province from Serbia.

"The whole logic of moving borders and the formation of new nations must be broken through. As long as one remains within this logic, there will just be one bloody round after another in the Balkans. We must counter nationalism with European integration," he said.

The foreign ministers discussed the lifting of some EU sanctions against Yugoslavia, notably the ban on sporting contacts and on business with Yugoslav airlines.

Ministers are concerned to ease those sanctions which hurt the Yugoslav people rather than Mr Milosevic's government and to exempt Kosovo and the small, pro-Western republic of Montenegro.