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Kosovo
10 pm
The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. George Robertson): I come to the House with some important and welcome news about the situation in Kosovo. At the end of many long and hard hours of discussion and negotiation, General Sir Michael Jackson has announced that he has signed the military technical agreement on behalf of NATO, setting out the detailed conditions for peace in the light of the draft United Nations Security Council resolution.
The agreement sets out in detail how all the Serb forces should conduct a phased, verifiable and orderly withdrawal from Kosovo. It provides, as General Jackson has made clear, an agreed basis for the deployment of an international security force, known as KFOR, to establish a secure environment in Kosovo.
The House will appreciate that this agreement is a major political and military vindication of NATO's policy, of its resolve and of its determination to end the horrific ethnic cleansing conducted by Milosevic and his troops and regime. It will pave the way for the eventual return of the refugees.
We expect that the United Nations Security Council resolution will be passed shortly and that the necessary measures will all be in place for the rapid deployment of KFOR, but I must warn the House that we have been misled by Milosevic before. We have learned not to trust his words and we will need to see his troops on the way out of Kosovo. We will want to see verifiable compliance with the terms of the agreement before allowing NATO to suspend the bombing campaign.
That is up to Milosevic. For our part, we look forward to being able to move to the next and very demanding stage and to the enormous challenges that lie ahead. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made clear, there is now a huge job to be done as the Serb forces go out, the international force goes in and we get the refugees home. We are ready for that task and British forces will be among the first to cross the border into Kosovo. All the House will, I am sure, be proud of that effort and join me in wishing them and their NATO allies every success in the difficult weeks and months ahead.
Mr. John Maples (Stratford-on-Avon):
The whole House will be delighted with that news, and we are very grateful to the Secretary of State for coming here tonight to make his statement. This is obviously a major step on the road from war to peace, although, as he said, there are an awful lot of problems still to be overcome.
The talks were obviously extremely difficult and our thanks are due to General Jackson and his staff. Were any concessions made in the course of the talks? Press reports say that the Serbs are being given longer to withdraw than the seven days originally planned. Will that delay the deployment of KFOR, and is there a possibility that both KFOR and the Yugoslav army will be in Kosovo at the same time? Does that present any difficulties? It is also reported that the buffer zone has been reduced from 25 to 5 km. Is that significant to the security of KFOR?
What timing does the Secretary of State expect on the UN Security Council resolution? He said that he hoped that it would be passed soon, but, as I understand it--
perhaps he can confirm this--KFOR cannot be deployed into Kosovo until it has been passed and the sequence would be: Serb withdrawal; cessation of bombing; UN Security Council resolution; and then the deployment of KFOR. We would all like to know that KFOR was in a position to deploy as soon as possible. Does he anticipate any difficulties about China's vote in the UN Security Council?
We all understand that the crucial test of success in the operation is the refugees being able to return to their homes, and the crucial ingredient in that is the composition of KFOR. Is there any significance in the fact that a footnote to the terms agreed on 3 June by Ahtisaari and the Serb Government spoke of KFOR having
I know that such negotiations are difficult and the wording does not always say exactly what will happen, but we would like to feel sure that the force will be able to do its job, because, if it cannot, the refugees will not go home and we will not have succeeded in what the Government and all of us have set out to achieve.
Will the Secretary of State say a word about whether Russian troops will participate in KFOR? It has been said that they will not be under NATO command, but it is important to ensure that Russia does not get a zone of occupation in Kosovo and Russian troops are spread around, as they are in Bosnia.
The difficulties for KFOR, its British component and General Jackson are only just beginning. They have all been sitting waiting for this moment for several months--all of them for several weeks, and General Jackson for several months. I am sure that the whole House wishes them every good fortune in the operations that they are about to undertake.
Mr. Robertson:
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his opening comments about the efforts that have led to this evening's news, and especially for his praise for General Mike Jackson. I was with General Jackson yesterday in Macedonia, and I know how much he appreciates the support given by so many people in this country, and on both sides of the House. The hon. Gentleman and I, with other Opposition Members, have visited some of our troops in action, and that in itself was a solid illustration of the way in which the British public have stayed with the campaign through all its difficult days, helping us to ensure that we get the refugees back home, and that the strategic threat that Milosevic represents not only to Kosovo but to the wider Balkans, has, as I hope, been seen off.
The hon. Gentleman asked several detailed questions, but he will appreciate that there are many of them that I cannot answer. I have come to report to the House, as I thought proper, at the earliest opportunity, and we have not had the opportunity to see all the technical details.
However, the hon. Gentleman can take it from me, and from his own instincts, that General Mike Jackson would not have agreed to any conditions in the military technical agreement that he thought would obstruct his work in getting KFOR in safely and securely to go about its job. Some of the technical questions about timing will be fixed in the agreement, which will have realistically laid down, in a verifiable way, times when all the Serb forces will leave Kosovo.
One of the reasons for the delay in the discussions in the now famous tent was the need to ensure that there would be no security vacuum in Kosovo, and the Serb withdrawal would be synchronised with KFOR's entry. I am sure that we will be satisfied with those provisions.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the timing of the United Nations Security Council resolutions and the like. I am told that the North Atlantic Council, to which the military technical agreement will go, is in session as we speak, and it is possible that the UN Security Council will also meet soon, perhaps even before dawn, so that, simultaneously, each of the features of the agreement--the Ahtisaari-Chernomyrdin agreement, the draft Security Council resolution and the technical military agreement--can all work together to ensure that movement can be as quick as possible.
The hon. Gentleman also asked me about a unified chain of command. I can assure him that General Jackson, who signed the military technical agreement tonight as commander of KFOR on behalf of NATO, is under no illusions, and neither are the Serbs, about his role and the way in which he will go about his business.
I cannot answer questions about the role of the Russians, but we all hope that they and the other nations will find a peacekeeping role inside Kosovo. That will be done in the best and most effective way possible. I must correct the hon. Gentleman, in that the Russians who are working with us in Bosnia are not scattered throughout the country; they operate within the structures and they have their own particular structures, which have worked well in the past. They are in one zone in one of the multinational divisions in Bosnia. However, that does not determine the way in which things will happen in future.
At the end of his question, the hon. Gentleman rightly commended our troops for what they have done. I also commend the Royal Air Force, the Royal Navy and the civilian back-up in the Ministry of Defence--people who have done a great deal here. I also commend the other elements inside the Government machine--the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, who has played such a distinguished role in the past few days in securing the draft Security Council resolution, and all those in the Foreign Office, the Cabinet Office and No. 10 who have contributed to ensuring that we reached this position.
I repeat what I said before: despite all the difficulties, traumas and pain involved, the task of the past 75 days may have been the easier part of the job. A difficult job is ahead of us now which will require the same unity of purpose in the alliance and the same grim determination that has seen us through all these days. We must make sure that we deliver on the promise that we all gave--to get the Kosovo refugees back to their homeland again.
Mr. Menzies Campbell (North-East Fife):
The announcement by the Secretary of State is a credit to all
Does the Secretary of State understand that, even for those who supported the Government, tonight is an occasion not for triumphalism so much as for relief? As he rightly pointed out, many of the past 78 days have been difficult. Would we not be right to be cautious about the tasks that lie ahead, not least because we have little idea of what NATO forces may find when they penetrate into Kosovo? Apart from the risks posed by booby traps and the indiscriminate use of mines, is it not also possible that untold horrors of brutality remain to be uncovered?
"NATO at its core"
and a
"unified chain of command under the political direction of the North Atlantic Council"
but that the UN Security Council draft resolution does not go as far as that and mentions NATO only in an annexe referring to "substantial NATO participation"?
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