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NEW YORK -- While publicly insisting the Clinton administration does not support an independent Kosovo, U.S. diplomats are helping lay the groundwork for a possible peaceful breakaway as the Yugoslav province gains autonomy under U.N. supervision.
The quietly evolving policy has its roots in U.S. antipathy for Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and the actions of Serb troops and special police in the mostly Albanian province that prompted NATO to bomb Belgrade and force their departure.
"For the time being, the Serbs of Belgrade have absolutely forfeited any right to have any say in the destiny of the people of Kosovo," Richard Holbrooke, the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Friday.
Holbrooke, interviewed on NBC's "Today" program, emphasized that the loss of Serb control was being enforced by the NATO peacekeepers who are in the province.
Sidestepping the question of whether the United States favors independence, Holbrooke said, "In the long run, the issue will be resolved through the U.N. Security Council."
The onetime Balkans envoy went on to say "the final disposition" of Kosovo would have to be worked out under U.N. auspices.
State Department spokesman James P. Rubin, meanwhile, said, "We are supporting the development of a democratic, autonomous, self-governing Kosovo under U.N. oversight and NATO protection."
"Any suggestion we have altered our policy on the future of status of Kosovo is wrong and incorrect," he added. "We do not support independence for Kosovo, period."
If Milosevic were to quit, or be forced out – the administration is enthusiastically encouraging his political foes – the Clinton administration might review its strategy.
But with Milosevic hanging on, and Kosovo developing new Albanian-led institutions as well as an armed "protection force," the trend is unmistakably in the direction of self-rule.
Before and throughout NATO's 78-day war against Yugoslavia that ended in June, the Clinton administration insisted it was not trying to engineer further fragmentation of Yugoslavia, from which four of its six republics spun off as independent nations earlier in the decade.
However, the United States has approved moves in Montenegro, the smaller of the two remaining republics that make up Yugoslavia, to strike an independent, democratic stance. And the pattern is even more evident in dealing with Kosovo.
Earlier this week, a troubled Russian foreign minister, Igor Ivanov, reflecting his country's long ties to the Serbs, asked Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to clarify U.S. policy on Kosovo's future.
Ivanov told her of Moscow's "profound concerns about the potential for independence" of Kosovo, a senior U.S. official related afterward.
Russia had objected to NATO's bombing campaign, and while it has some peacekeepers in Kosovo, it is sensitive to Serbia's historic religious and other roots in Kosovo.
According to the U.S. official, Albright told Ivanov "very strongly" that the best way to head off further splintering of Yugoslavia was to get rid of Milosevic. And Albright told Ivanov the United States does not support Kosovo independence, the official said.
The Albanian formation of an armed protection force, with the approval of the Clinton administration, could represent a step toward statehood and is bitterly opposed by many Serbs.
Albright on Wednesday defended the conversion of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army into the corps as consistent with attempts to develop a civil society.
The corps will have 3,000 active and 2,000 reserve members, will be led by Agim Ceku, the KLA chief of staff, and will have 2,000 weapons, most of them under lock and key.
Albright told reporters it was "quite remarkable" the ethnic Albanians had turned in their weapons after the conflict between NATO and Yugoslavia that forced the expulsion of Serb troops.
"It is very hard to ask people to give up their weapons and not give them anything in exchange in terms of dignity and their own personal worth," she said.
Meanwhile, the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Italy joined in a statement approving the reorganization of the KLA into the civilian corps.
In a terse statement, Albright and the foreign ministers of the four allies said the corps would make a useful contribution to the restoration of peace and security for all of the communities in the province.
Some Serbs have threatened to create their own defense force in the province that they fear will become independent and governed by the Albanian population.