Bill Clinton: “Well, that is what we will deal with tomorrow when we meet with the leaders of all those nations. Last week I went to…”

“Well, that is what we will deal with tomorrow when we meet with the leaders of all those nations. Last week I went to San Francisco to speak to the American newspaper editors to outline what I believe is an essential part of the long-term solution to the problems of the Balkans and southeast Europe generally. They are not yet sufficiently a part of the future we all imagine for Europe in the 21st century, which is not only peace and stability but also prosperity and shared decisionmaking. So my view is that we should do more to draw those nations closer to one another, to give them a positive reason to work together and to properly treat the ethnic minorities within their borders and work out ways for them to participate in the life of their country, as well as to maintain their own religious and cultural traditions. And we should work out ways for the nations of that region to relate more closely to all the European institutions and to Canada and the United States in North America. So, to me, this will not work over the long run--if you don't want to see this repeated, what we're doing now, it is not enough to defeat this moment of aggression and to reverse it and to send the Kosovars back home. We are going to have to create an alternative positive future. We know what the history of ethnic animosity in the Balkans is. We know that there is not a single ethnic group, even the Serbs, who cannot cite some historic example of legitimate grievance that can be manipulated by an unscrupulous politician. So what we need, with all these magnets pulling the people apart, we need a powerful set of magnets pulling the people together. And those have to be economic, as well as political and security. So the NATO open-door policy, the European Union's open-door policy, the prospect of new cooperation with all the states of southeastern Europe among themselves and with Europe and the United States and Canada--I think this is a very, very important thing. Over the long run, we have to do this: We have to create a positive future for this part of Europe if we want to avoid being in the very position we're in today again in a few years, in another place. Yes, Larry [Larry McQuillan, Reuters]. Oil Embargo”