Holbrooke

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (CNN) -- U.S. mediator Richard Holbrooke on Wednesday finished talks in Belgrade with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic on ways to end the Kosovo crisis and headed for Brussels without speaking to reporters.

Holbrooke's third meeting with Milosevic in as many days lasted almost four hours and was longer than expected.

Sources close to the discussions said earlier Wednesday that he had made no headway toward persuading Milosevic to commit himself publicly to ending the conflict in Kosovo and entering peace talks with the province's ethnic Albanian majority.

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Holbrooke was meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana in Brussels on Thursday to discuss the next moves.

Those meetings will be part of emergency talks by the so-called Contact Group on Yugoslavia, which includes France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Russia and the United States.

A U.S. State Department spokesman said the purpose of the talks would be to discuss "how to get Milosevic to comply" with U.N. demands to withdraw Yugoslav troops, allow humanitarian operations in Kosovo, and enter serious peace talks with ethnic Albanians, as demanded by the U.N. Security Council.

Clinton, Blair warn Milosevic

Both U.S. President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain again warned Milosevic on Wednesday about the possibility of NATO strikes should Milosevic not comply with the United Nations.

Wednesday's key statements and latest developments include:

• Clinton: "The way to avoid NATO military action is for Mr. Milosevic to honor the U.N. resolutions. If he does that, if he completely complies, he doesn't have to worry about military force." Clinton also said that if Milosevic complied with the U.N. demands "it may be necessary to have some verification groups go in."

• Blair: "We have to make sure he (Milosevic) is withdrawing from a position where he is able to commit these atrocities, these acts of barbarism in Kosovo, and he should know very clearly that if he doesn't then serious action will follow."

• The notorious Serbian warlord known as Arkan, as reported by Belgrade media: "We shall not kneel before NATO missiles. We shall not allow ourselves to become enslaved to NATO or any other foreign power."

• Fernando del Mundo, spokesman for the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Pristina, commenting on the tens of thousands of Kosovo refugees hiding in the woods: "Villagers (in Kosovo) are telling us that if the (Serbian) police withdraw, they will return home."

France, Denmark, Germany, Britain and Norway became the latest countries to advise their citizens in Yugoslavia to leave in light of the possible NATO airstrikes.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

"Kosovo: A Short History" by Noel Malcolm "Between Serb and Albanian: A History of Kosovo" by Miranda Vickers "Hearts Grown Brutal: Sagas of Sarajevo" by Roger Cohen "A Short History of the Yugoslav Peoples" by Frederick Bernard Singleton "Unwinnable Wars: American Power and Ethnic Conflict" by David Callahan Click here for additional reading on Yugoslavia