United Nations -- Russia introduced a Security Council resolution Thursday demanding an immediate end to NATO's airstrikes against Yugoslavia, denouncing them as a "threat to international peace" and a "flagrant violation" of both the U.N. Charter and Yugoslav sovereignty.
The resolution, which faces almost certain defeat when the Council considers it Friday, was introduced by Sergey Lavrov, Russia's representative to the United Nations. A spokesman for Lavrov said the measure was intended to underline Russia's view that military action is illegal and destabilizing.
Peter Burleigh, the U.S. representative, along with other Western delegates, vowed to oppose the measure vigorously and predicted that it would fail to obtain the 9 votes needed for approval on the 15-member Council, thus making it unnecessary for the United States, Britain and France to exercise their veto power. Only the Council's five permanent members -- the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China -- can veto Council resolutions.
Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's representative, said the Council's debate showed that a majority of member countries supported the NATO action, which was undertaken reluctantly and only after months of talks with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic failed to produce an agreement that would protect the people of Kosovo. Milosevic would have found "little comfort" in the Council's two-hour-long debate Wednesday, he said.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Thursday that he saw no political role for him at this stage of the crisis. "The Contact Group is in the lead and at this stage I have no plans of getting immediately involved," Annan told reporters, referring to the negotiating group on Kosovo that includes the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia. Because the council has been so divided on the use of force over Kosovo and Iraq, the United States turned to NATO rather than the Security Council to respond to the Yugoslav crisis.
