Russian Defense Minister to Visit BalkansRussian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev is due to visit the Balkans in early February to hold talks with Yugoslav leaders and inspect Russian peacekeepers in Bosnia and Kosovo, Interfax news agency said on Jan.15.Russia has been the leading critic of NATO's military operation against Yugoslavia in 1999, launched to end ethnic cleansing in the breakaway region of Kosovo. But it subsequently took part in NATO-led peacekeeping operations in Kosovo. Interfax quoted the head of the ministry's foreign relations department, Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov, as saying Sergeyev, who was due in the region on February 6-8, would discuss Kosovo with Yugoslav military and political leaders. Moscow is also pressing for an international investigation into the possible consequences of the use of depleted uranium munitions by the Western alliance in Kosovo and during the 1991 Gulf War, which may have caused harm to troops and civilians. NATO insists there is no proven link between the arms and cancer. But at least seven deaths from leukemia among Italian troops and illness among servicemen from France, the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium and Portugal have threatened to split the alliance. Ivashov also said Sergeyev would visit Russian peacekeepers in Kosovo and Bosnia before returning to Moscow. |
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