KOSOVO….

President Yeltsin on July 30 declared it a “strategic, global task” to “restore the friendly relations with the United States, Germany, France and other nations” that existed before NATO’s attack on Yugoslavia. A first step is a giant step away from Yugoslavia’s President Slobodan Milosevic. During his visit to the United States two weeks ago, Prime Minister Sergei Stepashin admitted that Milosevic “is also to blame”–along with NATO–“for what happened in Yugoslavia.” More pointedly, Boris Yeltsin last week was host to Milo Djukanovic, the president of Montenegro, who hopes to lead his tiny republic out of the Yugoslav Federation. Both sides proclaimed that visit a great success.