BONN TALKS PRODUCE NO AGREEMENT ON DRAFT UN RESOLUTION.

Russia’s return to antagonism to the West with regard to the Kosovo settlement was in evidence again yesterday during a meeting in Bonn of foreign ministers from the G-7 countries and Russia. Reports from the German capital made it clear that Moscow was the lone holdout in efforts to turn the June 3 agreement into a resolution which would confer UN authority on the peace plan. The three points on which the G-7 countries and Russia could not reach agreement, moreover, coincided in large part with the differences which had divided Russia and the West until last week’s diplomatic breakthrough. The three issues in question reportedly pertain to the composition and status of the Kosovo security force, wording which would empower the security force to take “robust” military measures to ensure peace in Kosovo and a reference in the preamble of the document being discussed in Bonn to the war-crimes indictment of Milosevic (Reuters, AP, June 7).

Moscow’s seeming duplicity in helping Belgrade to renege on the conditions of a peace plan brokered with Russian participation would seem to reflect tensions over the peace plan within the Russian government itself. Although Chernomyrdin appears to have operated with the blessing of the Russian president, Yeltsin’s praise of the former prime minister this weekend did not include an endorsement of the peace plan itself. Support for the plan among other Russian government leaders has also been lukewarm at best. Meanwhile, a host of Russian political figures, including some military and parliamentary leaders, have made clear their unhappiness over the concessions made by Chernomyrdin. Their criticism of the peace plan reflects the broader dissatisfaction of Russia’s political elite with the West’s policies in the Balkans. They also suggest that Yeltsin may have a difficult time donning the mantle of peacemaker at the G-7 summit later this month while trying simultaneously to keep his various domestic constituents happy.

REPORTED DIVISION OF CABINET POWERS GIVES AKSENENKO THE HIGH CARDS.