War in the Balkans: Peace Move - Overture from from party of Mrs Milosevic

WHILE SLOBODAN Milosevic publicly keeps his distance from any Western-backed peace proposals for Kosovo, his wife's political party has joined - if only hesitantly - those forces seeking a compromise solution with the West.

In an interview published yesterday in the International Herald Tribune, Goran Matic, a leader of Mirjana Markovic's Yugoslav United Left, said he believed the conflict over the province would be solved within the next few days.

Mr Matic, seen as close to Mr Milosevic's inner circle, told the newspaper that a mutually satisfactory formula would soon be found with the assistance of diplomatic initiatives from Moscow, Serbia's traditional Orthodox ally.

"I believe this will be the week in which the basic outlines of an agreement on Kosovo can be firmed up," he said. "We will give Nato their victory," he said, adding ambiguously that "they [Nato] have to decide what that really means". He said: "We won't give up Kosovo or allow armed troops into Kosovo. Everything else we will give Nato for their victory."

While the substance of Mr Matic's remarks will hardly raise eyebrows - Nato after all can hardly claim "victory" without sending at least some armed troops into Kosovo - the tone suggests important elements in the Serbian regime do not want the sacking of the moderate Deputy Prime Minister, Vuk Draskovic, to be seen as closing off all avenues to a peaceful solution.

Ms Markovic's party, known by its acronym JUL, does not garner many votes in Serbian polls. Nor does it need to, such is the power that the former Professor of Marxism is said to wield over her husband.

In spite of its feeble poll ratings, membership of JUL is seen as a ticket to the highest office in Serbian politics and industry, most of which is in the patronage of the Yugoslav President. Ms Markovic, moreover, is known to telephone her husband up to a dozen times a day and sources close to the regime insist he acts on her political advice.

Ms Markovic has acted the role of prophet before. During the 1991-5 wars in Croatia and Bosnia, it was Ms Markovic's attack on the Bosnian Serb leadership in her magazine column that was seen as a sign that they had forfeited Mr Milosevic's support.

Her words were recalled when Mr Milosevic refused to come to the aid of the Bosnian and Croatian Serbs when they were threatened with military annihilation in the summer of 1995.