THESE are dangerous days for peace in the Balkans - and for the risk of the west being sucked into a long-term conflict there - if a true settlement is not reached between Serbia and the Kosovo Albanians.

For that was not what was reached last night when the Kosovo peace talks ended with only the Albanian side signing their autonomy agreement.

The Serbs stayed away - and even Russia's negotiator did too.

Now, the West's sabre is being rattled yet again at the Serbs' president Slobodan Milosevic, the dictator whose unwillingness to compromise has, so far, not been curbed by threats of NATO air strikes or anything else.

But though he must be made to reach accommodation over Kosovo, that may not be achieved if new threats of NATO action again prove to be empty. The west may find that swift surgical strikes are not enough as it is sucked into a European Vietnam in the Balkans. Is there the political will for that?

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.