Albright's Kosovo Plan Is a Long Shot

BELGRADE: Madeleine Albright is nothing if not an optimist. The secretary of state's new peace plan for Kosovo "is more of a wish list than a proposal," says TIME reporter Dejan Anastasijevic. Although it extends NATO's military options to include peacekeeping ground troops, the plan is premised on a hypothetical agreement between the Serb government and ethnic Albanian rebels on autonomy -- but not independence -- for Kosovo. "The possibility of any agreement between the Serbs and the Albanians is very slight," says Anastasijevic. "Most ethnic Albanian parties won't even negotiate about anything short of independence, and Milosevic is exploiting that to maintain his own tough stand -- right now neither side has given up hope of achieving their objectives by force."

Albright worked Wednesday to get NATO to issue a tough ultimatum to both sides on Thursday, threatening that failure to accept a compromise could result in air strikes on the Serbs and unspecified restrictions on the KLA guerrillas. But in the hills north of Pristina Wednesday, the two sides continued to let their weapons do the talking.