Wednesday 31 March 1999

INTERVIEWER: President Milosevic has said that he will pull back his
forces and allow the refugees back. Haven't you got what you wanted?

COOK: He didn't say he would stop the killing, in fact he quite
explicitly said there would not be a cease-fire in Kosovo on the ground.
Yes, if we stopped the bombing he would pull back some troops -- and we
have no idea how few he would pull out -- but the rest that would remain
were going to carry on the killing and the ethnic cleansing. I think
none of your viewers would understand if we were to accept that offer and
to leave the Kosovar Albanians still the casualties and the victims of
the brutalities and the atrocities that we are seeing at the present
time.

INTERVIEWER: Is it true that you are widening your targets to include
blowing up facilities crucial to President Milosevic's machine, his
personal power base? Is it true that in fact the bombing will happen in
a geographical area close to where he lives?

COOK: I think I would be very unwise to tell you in which geographical
area the bombing might occur. It is our pilots who will be flying some
of these missions, I am not going to say anything that would give the
other side warning as to where our pilots might be going.

INTERVIEWER: OK, is there a shift of policy there to attacking President
Milosevic himself?

COOK: No. What we will certainly be doing is making sure that we hit
the military targets that are directly relevant to what is going on in
Kosovo, and we will be making sure that we hit hard.

INTERVIEWER: And when we see the numbers of refugees flowing out of the
area, we can't help but wonder if now isn't the time to send ground
forces in to really see what is going on in Kosovo.

COOK: There is no short cut through ground troops. Even if we were to
commit ground troops, and that is not our intention or our plan, but even
if we were to commit ground troops we would still be carrying out some
weeks of an aerial campaign to make sure that they could successfully
enter Kosovo and Serbia. Do remember that in the Gulf War there were
seven weeks of an air campaign before the ground troops were committed;
the most immediate direct way in which we can make a difference to the
way in which President Milosevic's army operates is from the air. We can
make it more difficult for them to support the programme of cleansing by
the Serb special police. Do remember, those special police only go into
the villages to carry out the cleansing once they have first been ringed
by tanks and heavy artillery. We can make that much more difficult.

INTERVIEWER: And the immediate problem which all the aid agencies say is
the real crux of the matter, certainly from their immediate problems this
morning -- what are we going to do about the tens, now hundreds of
thousands of refugees that really have nowhere to go and are desperate?

COOK: There is a lot of food, tents, blankets in the area, which were
already there because I am afraid we have long familiar experience of
President Milosevic's way of carrying out ethnic cleansing. Remember,
there have been 350,000 refugees created in Kosovo even before this past
week. But of course we must do everything we can, and that is why
Britain has already pledged 10 million pounds for immediate aid.

INTERVIEWER: There is some concern that 10 million is not going to be
anywhere near enough though?

COOK: It is an immediate contribution to the immediate emergency. We
are not saying that that is going to be all, and I was going to go on to
say that last night a British plane did reach the region, did carry tents
and blankets for those in the most immediate need. We believe it was the
first national plane to get through. We are determined to do all we can;
last night I spoke to my French, my German and my American counterparts
as Foreign Ministers, and together we are all going to make sure that our
nations respond and that Europe responds. This is a crisis that does
demand a co-ordinated response from the international community.