Blockade and Sanctions Against Yugoslavia Lifted

BRUSSELS â€”  NATO and the Western European Union military organization terminated their naval blockade in the Adriatic on Wednesday after the U.N. Security Council’s vote to lift trade sanctions against Serb-led Yugoslavia.

In a joint statement, the two groups said their vessels had challenged 74,000 ships since the mission started in 1993. Six ships were caught trying to break the sanctions.

The mission was the first joint operation between NATO and the WEU, the fledging defense arm of the European Union.

In New York, the Security Council voted unanimously Tuesday to lift sanctions as a sign of international recognition of Serbia’s role in helping to bring peace to the Balkans. Serbia and Montenegro comprise what is left of Yugoslavia.

The council suspended the sanctions in November after Serbia signed the peace accord that ended about 3 1/2 years of fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Tuesday’s action formally removes the sanctions.

But the United States said it will continue to block Yugoslavia’s participation in international institutions such as the U.N. General Assembly and the World Bank pending further steps to reduce tensions in the Balkans.

The U.N. sanctions were imposed because of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic’s role in fomenting Serbian separatist movements in neighboring Croatia and Bosnia as part of his dream of a Greater Serbia.

But last year, Milosevic played a crucial role in moves toward peace in the Balkans, signing an accord brokered in Dayton, Ohio, on behalf of Bosnian Serbs--a treaty they had opposed.

The results of the embargo, combined with the costs of economic mismanagement and war, devastated the rump Yugoslavia.