Global Policy Forum

By Irwin Arieff

The U.N. Security Council on Monday ended an arms embargo imposed on Yugoslavia in March 1998, lifting the last international sanctions against Belgrade over its crackdown on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. In a 15-0 vote, the council approved a resolution submitted by the United States, noting Yugoslavia had satisfied all requirements to end the ban. The end of the embargo was possible after the new Belgrade government transferred former president Slobodan Milosevic to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, on June 28.

The council decision permits Yugoslav armed forces that have been cooperating with NATO in patrolling a buffer zone between Kosovo province and Serbia, the larger of the two Yugoslav republics, to obtain military equipment. The vote "reveals the good relations, the constructive cooperation and the trust which exist now between the democratic authorities in Belgrade and the international community," said Ambassador Jean-David Levitte of France, the council's current president.

"The development of the dialogue between Yugoslavia and the international community is positive for the search of peace, stability and reconciliation in southeast Europe," Levitte told reporters. In a letter to the council, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan listed steps Belgrade had taken to comply with Security Council resolutions, including withdrawing special police units and refraining from actions against civilians in Kosovo. "I think it is a very positive development and I applaud the council for taking prompt action," Annan told reporters after the vote.

An arms embargo had been in place throughout most of the 1990s against Yugoslavia, Croatia and Bosnia. But it was gradually lifted with provisos in the 1995 Dayton peace agreement that ended the Bosnian war. The council then reimposed the weapons ban against Belgrade in 1998 because of Milosevic's repression of the ethnic Albanian majority in Kosovo province. A year later, NATO-led forces bombed Yugoslavia to drive its troops from Kosovo.

European countries as well as the United States had also imposed economic sanctions against Yugoslavia but began to lift them once Milosevic was defeated in elections last October. Yugoslav Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic welcomed the end of the arms ban. "This means not only that there are no more sanctions, but also that we can think about the role of the military-industrial complex in our country's economy," he told Belgrade's B 92 radio. "There should no great expectations in that area, but it is important to know that we no longer have a limitation we've had so far," Svilanovic said.