Rambouillet Agreement

It was drafted by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and named for the Château de Rambouillet, where it was initially proposed in early 1999.

Executive power would be exercised by a government led by a prime minister, proposed by the president and confirmed by the assembly.

Communal police officers may be equipped with a sidearm, handcuffs, a baton, and, a radio and would be required to wear a badge, picture identification, and name tag.

At times, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer also took part in the talks.

They went on to say that "a political framework is now in place" leaving the further work of finalizing "the implementation Chapters of the Agreement, including the modalities of the invited international civilian and military presence in Kosovo".

The Albanians were unwilling to accept a solution that would retain Kosovo as part of Serbia, while the Serbs did not want to see the pre-1990 status quo restored, and they were implacably opposed to any international role in the governance of the province, including the offer of a face-saving measure wherein blue-helmeted UN peacekeeping troops would be used instead of NATO troops.

[8] To add to the problem, the NATO Contact Group countries were desperate to avoid having to make good on their threat of force—Greece and Italy were opposed to the idea.

[10] The agreement was signed by Ibrahim Rugova, Hashim Thaçi, Rexhep Qosja and Veton Surroi on behalf of "Kosovo" in the presence of Christopher Hill and Wolfgang Petritsch on 18 March 1999.

On 23 March, the Serbian assembly issued a resolution that condemned the withdrawal of the OSCE monitors,[12] and accepted the principle of "autonomy" for Kosovo[13] and non-military part of the agreement.

[14] The historian Christopher Clark supports this view, asserting that the terms of the 1914 Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia appear lenient compared to the NATO demands.

[17] Historian Noel Malcolm wrote that as the Kosovo Albanian delegation signed the agreement on the 18th, the Yugoslav delegation boycotted the ceremony and declared its opposition to the plan and that military maneuvers were being planned, so that by March 20 there were more than 26,000 Serbian troops inside the province and another 15,000 stationed just beyond its eastern border.