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BOSTON, July 28 (AFP) - President Bill Clinton warned Friday that the Yugoslav government "remains a threat to peace" and vowed to back the democratic opposition in Serbia and in Montenegro, Serbia's partner in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The U.S. president hailed the Stability Pact for Southeast Europe launched last year in the aftermath of the Kosovo conflict and the establishment this week of a $150 million fund with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to promote business in the region. But he warned that the regime of President Slobodan Milosevic was still of grave concern. "While the results since the Stability Pact Summit are encouraging, the last aggressive dictatorship in Europe remains a threat to peace," Clinton said in a statement issued in Boston, where he was traveling. "We will continue to support the democratic opposition in Serbia and the people of Montenegro until they can take their rightful place among the free and prosperous people of Europe," he said. Earlier Friday, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke, said Washington was "extremely concerned about Montenegro." "That concern only increased in light of recent changes in the Yugoslav constitution which significantly threatens a very fragile balance," he added. The Yugoslav parliament in Belgrade dominated by Milosevic adopted constitutional changes on July 6 allowing the president to serve a new term beyond 2001, without the approval of Montenegro. The changes allow a president to be elected by a majority in a popular vote, regardless of turnout, and permit presidents to stand for more than one four-year term. Montenegro, along with Vuk Draskovic's Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) opposition party has called for a boycott of the September 24th presidential elections. "We are in constant touch with the leadership of Montenegro," Holbrooke said at a news conference at UN headquarters in New York. Under the direction of pro-western reformist President Milo Djukanovic of Montenegro, distance has gradually increased between the small republic and Belgrade since 1998. Holbrooke, who fashioned the Dayton peace accords at the end of the Bosnian war in November of 1995, has said that a crisis between Montenegro and Serbia could ignite another conflict. He warned that NATO could not ignore such a situation. "Given the deployment of NATO in the region, it would be directly affecting NATO's vital interest," he said. |
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