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THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release May 1, 1999

STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT

Sanctions on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

At the NATO summit, the nineteen allied leaders agreed to intensify economic pressure on the Belgrade regime, in support of our united effort to stand up to ethnic cleansing and restore the people of Kosovo to their land with security and self-government. Today I have signed an Executive Order strengthening economic sanctions against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

The measures included in the Executive Order buttress U.S. sanctions already in place against the Milosevic regime. Under the expanded sanctions, we will, among other things: ban exports and re-exports to and imports from the FRY, including petroleum and strategic goods, and freeze all property and property interests of the FRY government in the United States or controlled by U.S. entities.

We will retain the current exemptions for Montenegro, because of our strong support for its democratically-elected, multiethnic government. And we will apply these sanctions with consideration for the humanitarian needs of displaced people in Kosovo and other civilians, and consistent with our new policy of exempting from sanctions commercial sales of food and medicine.

With these strengthened sanctions, we will diminish the Belgrade regime's ability to continue its campaign of repression and defiance, while allowing needed supplies to reach victims of its reckless and brutal conduct, whatever their ethnicity or faith.

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