Major military activity in Kosovo has stopped and has been replaced by a stand-off and a build-up of forces, NATO sources said yesterday. NATO also dismissed a warning from a Russian general earlier in the day that intervention in the province by the alliance would mean "a new cold war".
However, according to NATO sources, the unpredictable situation made it imperative that independent monitors, perhaps from the EU, be deployed quickly to see up close whether violence had ceased.
The large world powers are insisting that the Yugoslav President, Mr Slobodan Milosevic, move rapidly to implement promises made in Moscow on Tuesday to end a military crackdown and start talks with ethnic Albanians who form a 90 per cent majority of Kosovo's 1.8 million people.
Mr Milosevic did not concede to a demand that he withdraw the Yugoslav army and special police units, and western allies said they were not convinced that he was really changing course from a military strategy.
A NATO official said alliance military planners were meeting to finalise plans for a range of options for Kosovo, from preventive deployments on its borders to direct intervention should the crisis erupt and threaten peace.
The official dismissed the warning from a top Russian general, Col-Gen Leonid Ivashov, that NATO intervention could mean a new "cold war".
"[NATO action in Kosovo without UN support] would lead to the start of a new cold war," Itar-Tass news agency quoted the defence ministry's Col-Gen Leonid Ivashov as saying. "Moscow would not stand idly by. Europe does not want to go back to where we were a few years ago but someone is trying to push it there and it's not Russia."
Col-Gen Ivashov heads the ministry's international military co-operation department, responsible for ties with NATO. His comments marked a new stage in Russia's battle of words with the organisation, its old cold war adversary, about how best to restore peace in Kosovo, where Serbian security forces are fighting ethnic Albanian rebels.
The Yugoslav Foreign Minister, Mr Zivadin Jovanovic, who held talks yesterday with the Luxembourg Foreign Minister, Mr Jacques Poos, repeated that the Moscow framework held the best prospects for political progress.
A NATO official yesterday rejected a suggestion that the alliance was getting cold feet about intervention in Yugoslavia.
A Yugoslav assault on Kosovo villages, which triggered a wave of refugees from the territory earlier this month, persuaded some NATO members that preventive deployments in Albania and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia were a pseudo-solution. The allies then placed emphasis on plans for direct intervention. Asked if preventive deployments were again favoured, the official said NATO had never asked for this planning to be stopped or slowed down.
"No one in his right mind wants to use force. Military actions carry grave risks," the official said. He said NATO planners were also considering how to send a strong signal to the Kosovo rebels to prevent them exploiting any relaxation by the Yugoslav security forces or any military action by NATO.
The clandestine Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK), however, said in a communique released in Pristina that it was now preparing for a "decisive confrontation" with Serbia.
Meanwhile, the Albanian Prime Minister, Mr Fatos Nano, yesterday urged NATO to step up pressure on Mr Milosevic to resolve the conflict.
Mr Nano's call came as the Albanian air force completed a 30minute group exercise involving three air regiments in which air-to-ground and air-to-air combat was simulated.
The Yugoslav Prime Minister, Mr Momir Bulatovic, warned yesterday that the army would defend the country if NATO intervened militarily over the Kosovan crisis.