Declaring the United States has a long-term interest in Bosnia, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright says she has told European allies there is no decision on whether U.S. troops will remain in the region after next June.
While President Clinton ponders what to do - and whether to take on members of Congress who are drawing parallels to Vietnam - Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov has offered his country's endorsement of an extension of NATO operations in the former Yugoslav republic."Foreign Minister Primakov did let me know that they had no objection to it," Albright said Wednesday after meeting with British, French, German, Italian and Russian diplomats.
"Again, I made the same statement to him as I have to you - that there have been no decisions in terms of the military sphere on this. We say the same thing publicly as we say privately," she said.
Albright and other top American diplomats emphasized the Clinton administration intended to at least maintain economic and political involvement in Bosnia. "We have a long-term interest in what is happening in Bosnia," she said.