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No US apology over attack on Indian envoy's house

C K Arora in Washington

The United States is, at present, not thinking of sending any formal apology to India and four other countries, whose ambassadors' residences were hit in Thursday's missile attacks in Belgrade.

An indication to this effect was given by state department spokesman James Rubin. ''I'm not aware of any direct protests at the state department,'' he said yesterday when asked whether the US had received protests from any of the affected countries. ''They appeared to have ignored the unintentional mishap instead of making an issue out of it.''

''My understanding is that the Swedish ambassador is still prepared to work with us on the protective power issue,'' he added.

NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana has already made sufficient amends for the mishap.

An Indian journalist asked Rubin why the US, whose plane actually did the bombing, was not following the example set by the NATO secretary-general. He asked why the US was not sending an apology, as was done in the case of China recently.

Rubin replied, ''Well, I think there's a difference between a bomb landing on an embassy and killing diplomats who were there, or journalists who were there (as had happened in case of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade), and the shattered glass damage from nearby explosions (in case of the diplomatic residences of India and other countries).

Besides Swedish and Indian, Spanish, Norwegian and Hungarian diplomatic residences were damaged. The residences are all near military targets.

Meanwhile, according to a Belgium report, the NATO secretary- general contacted India and other nations yesterday to apologise for the incident, stressing that the damage was unintentional.

''We have obviously expressed our apologies for any inconvenience that may have been caused,'' NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said. ''I'm encouraged by the fact that many of the governments have also expressed solidarity with NATO's action.''

There was no diplomatic fallout following Thursday's incident, Shea said. ''These governments understand fully well that this damage, if it does occur at all, is wholly unintentional.''

Earlier, Rubin said, ''In our view, NATO's air campaign clearly represents the most accurate and discriminating use of air power in history. NATO yesterday said that out of the total of about 10,000 guided bombs dropped thus far, only 12 -- that is 0.12 per cent or one-tenth of one per cent -- had gone astray.

''Obviously, we all want to avoid any potential for civilian or unintended casualties. We have made it clear to Americans that this is a dangerous place. I suspect other diplomats are wise enough to know that as well,'' Rubin added.

UNI

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