WASHINGTON (CNN) -- For the first time since NATO's bombing campaign against Yugoslavia began last year, U.S. diplomats have returned to Belgrade, albeit for a brief visit.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters that William Montgomery, U.S. Ambassador to Croatia, who had been based in Belgrade before the bombing campaign began, returned Wednesday with "a team of people."
Boucher said, however, that for security reasons, Montgomery and his team are not working out of the U.S. Embassy. Instead, the U.S. diplomats are set up in an undisclosed location.
Frequent visits expected
"We do expect that Ambassador Montgomery and officers from his section of our embassy in Budapest will be making frequent trips to Belgrade," said Boucher. "But at this time, no decision has been made about the permanent staffing of the office, the U.S. office in Belgrade."
NATO began air strikes against Yugoslavia in March of 1999 after Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic rejected a peace agreement with ethnic Albanians in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo and refused to stop a crackdown against the ethnic-Albanian autonomy movement in the province.
The bombing continued until Yugoslavia signed an accord with NATO and began withdrawing Serb security forces from Kosovo in June.
On Monday, the European Union announced its decision to lift sanctions imposed on Yugoslavia since 1998 in response to the Milosevic regime's policies in Kosovo. The United States is considering a similar move.
"We are working with our Congress as closely as possible, we're consulting with people, talking to them about details of lifting the sanctions, as well as levels of proposed aid to Yugoslavia," said Boucher.
U.S. officials may meet Kostunica
The purpose of Montgomery's first trip to Belgrade is to lay the groundwork for a visit expected Thursday by Jim O'Brien, the Clinton administration's point man on the Balkans.
Boucher said that Montgomery and O'Brien are expecting to meet Yugoslavia's new president Vojislav Kostunica and other members of the new Yugoslav leadership.
Their mission, the State Department said, will be to explain what the U.S. is doing with regard to the lifting of sanctions and continued U.S. aid programs for Yugoslavia.
After Belgrade, O'Brien is expected to travel to the Yugoslav republic of Montenegro and then to Kosovo.
Montgomery is the highest-ranking U.S. envoy to set foot in Belgrade
since the departure of embassy Charge D'Affairs Richard Miles when the NATO
bombing campaign started in 1999.
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