Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, the European Union's Kosovo envoy, has said Yugoslavia's latest statements on the conflict were too vague to advance the cause of peace.
The Yugoslav government said on Friday it accepted "the general principles" of a Group of Eight big powers plan. But in a CNN television interview yesterday, Mr Ahtisaari said "Just accepting the G8 principles does not give us the clarity to proceed further. We need a clear understanding from the Yugoslav leadership."
Mr Ahtisaari was more cautious than NATO, whose spokesman said yesterday Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic seemed to be creeping towards accepting the alliance's terms.
G8 peace proposals, which have the support of Russia, are a milder version of NATO's demands, which do not. Both call for withdrawal of Yugoslav military from Kosovo, the return of all ethnic Albanian refugees and deployment of an armed international force to protect them.
Mr Ahtisaari said he expected to have another round of consultations in Moscow tomorrow with Russia's Kosovo envoy, Mr Viktor Chernomyrdin and the US Deputy Secretary of State, Mr Strobe Talbott. He said he would then decide whether to accompany Mr Chernomyrdin on his next trip to Belgrade, expected around midweek.
On Friday, Mr Chernomyrdin said his fourth round of talks with President Milosevic were positive and he expected Mr Ahtisaari to come with him on his next visit. Mr Ahtisaari has not yet been to Belgrade in his new role as EU envoy for Kosovo.
Mr Ahtisaari told CNN if he went to Belgrade, it would not be to negotiate with President Milosevic, who was indicted by the UN war crimes tribunal last week for alleged mass expulsions and murder of Kosovo Albanians over the past five months.
"This is not a normal negotiating process. If I go to Belgrade I will explain the offer the international community is prepared to make, and the chances the Yugoslav people have for peace", Mr Ahtisaari said. "That's entirely different from negotiations."
Mr Ahtisaari also said he saw no point in calls by doves in NATO, by Russia and other critics for a halt in NATO bombing in the belief this would give more room for diplomacy to succeed.
"If you do not (first) achieve a verifiable withdrawal of Yugoslav security forces from Kosovo, any bombing pause could be used (by Serbian authorities) to prolong negotiations forever."
US General Wesley Clark, NATO's supreme commander, agreed. "I think it's the bombing that is impelling the diplomacy", he said on the same programme.
"Any bombing pause now would give the Serbs a chance to continue their campaign against 500,000-plus Kosovar Albanians still inside Kosovo, to reconstitute and refit their forces."
Mr Ahtisaari said it was important for all sides - the West, Russia and Yugoslavia - to agree what an international security presence in Kosovo would mean.
"It would not be a traditional UN peacekeeping operation", he said, apparently dismissing Belgrade's general position ruling out any heavily armed force with a dominating or at least large NATO element, as the major Western powers insist on.
The NATO spokesman, Mr Jamie Shea, told reporters in Brussels Milosevic was showing signs of compromise but should state himself that he accepts the five conditions "without reservation, without negotiation".
"He has begun to move from a position of almost total defiance of the international community when we started (raids) on March 24th to at least now saying that he accepts the key demands of the G8, which embody NATO's five conditions".
Russia says NATO must end its bombing campaign before a plan is completed, while NATO says Belgrade must begin to meet its demands first - a stand-off that will be hard to break.