Thank you Madame Chairperson.

We take note of the Russian Federation's position regarding NATO's intervention during the Kosovo crisis a year ago. I would like to respond to the implication regarding my country's and the NATO member states' compliance with the OSCE commitments during the Kosovo crisis.

First, every effort was made by the international community, in particular by the OSCE, to find a political solution to the conflict in Kosovo.

Nevertheless, in direct defiance of the international community, President Milosevic refused to comply with the resolutions of the UN Security Council, to observe the limits on his security forces he agreed to on 25 October 1998, or to accept the political settlement which was negotiated at Rambouillet.

The simple fact is, Milosevic disregarded all diplomatic efforts to find a solution to the problem that would have avoided armed conflict. Indeed, he used the occasion of the peace talks to launch a major offensive into Kosovo involving the deployment into the province of an additional 40,000 troops and 300 tanks in order to begin a calculated campaign of ethnic cleansing in the region.

Moreover, Milosevic's disproportionate use of force in Kosovo - to include murder, rape, and the wanton destruction of property -- directly resulted in a humanitarian catastrophe involving the forced expulsion of hundreds of thousands of children, and the elderly be justified by the Milosevic regime's claims that they were only taking actions against terrorists.

Even before the NATO air campaign began, there were already over 200,000 internally displaced Kosovars, 70,000 refugees had fled the region, and substantial evidence of summary executions and other atrocities by Serb forces had already come to light. These are the facts which prompted NATO to intercede in a horrifying and worsening crisis situation.

In sum, it is clear that Milosevic's actions constituted not only a massive violation of the human rights of his own citizenry, but also an unacceptable threat to wider peace and security in Europe. NATO's intervention was the necessary course of action at the time, and remains right in retrospect. The objective of our actions was to induce a respect for human rights, to ameliorate a massive humanitarian catastrophe, and to prevent the further spread of the conflict.

OSCE’s own reporting has exhaustively and unforgettably documented the horrible atrocities which occurred even during the limited time before the arrival of international peacekeeping forces. We should all pause for a moment to imagine what would have happened had the international community done nothing.

Although the conflict ended almost one year ago, the Milosevic regime continues to govern as if the Kosovo conflict continues. He has done virtually nothing to make lives better for his own people or to bring Serbia back into the mainstream of Europe where it belongs.

As we have seen over the past several weeks, the Milosevic regime has implemented an increasingly transparent and calculated effort to mute the voices of democracy coming from within Serbia. He has been aggressive in closing the independent Serb media, he has been persecuting students and democratic politicians, and he continues to imprison thousands of Kosovo Albanians captured during the conflict.

All this makes it clear that so long as Milosevic remains in power, these repressive, anti-democratic policies will persist, keeping the innocent people of Serbia isolated.

A democratic Serbia, committed to living in peace with its neighbors, can expect to be fully embraced by the international community as have been all of Serbia's neighbors in the Balkans. We hope to see such a democratic Serbia soon, and support the Serbian opposition's efforts to effect such a democratic change.