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UÇKHistory and Memory

6–23 February 1999 · 1999

The Rambouillet conference

From 6 to 23 February 1999 the Contact Group brought the Albanian and Yugoslav/Serbian delegations together at the Château de Rambouillet. The conference ended with a draft “Interim Agreement for Peace and Self-Government in Kosovo”.
Evidence status: Documented. Supported by contemporaneous documents, institutional reports or independent studies that corroborate one another.The 1998–1999 warDiplomacy
French château with turrets and a flower garden in front.
The Château de Rambouillet in France, the venue of the Kosovo talks in February 1999. Photograph taken in 2021.Photo: Trougnouf (Benoit Brummer) · 2021-09-04 · CC BY-SA 4.0

The conference was co-chaired by the UK and French foreign ministers, with negotiators from the US, the EU and Russia (Hill, Petritsch, Mayorski). The Kosovo Albanian delegation, with Hashim Thaçi as spokesman, said it would sign within two weeks; the FRY/Serbian delegation did not accept the draft [1] [2].

Sources give slightly different dates (HRW: 6–22 February). The ICTY Chamber found no basis in the evidence to conclude that the FRY/Serbian delegation was at that stage any less committed to peace — unlike the State Department's public account at the time [1].

Photographs

Civilian and military officials seated around a conference table.
NATO Secretary General Javier Solana meets US Secretary of Defense William Cohen at the Pentagon on 15 March 1999. They discussed NATO's reaction should Yugoslavia refuse to sign the peace agreement worked out in Rambouillet.Photo: Robert D. Ward · 1999-03-15 · Domen publik (Public domain)

Sources

  1. [1]Tribunali Penal Ndërkombëtar për ish-Jugosllavinë (ICTY). Prosecutor v. Milutinović et al., Judgement, Volume 1 of 4. 2009-02-26. IT-05-87-T. https://www.icty.org/x/cases/milutinovic/tjug/en/jud090226-e1of4.pdf. Accessed 2026-09-16. — paras 353–389; para. 389
  2. [2]Fred Abrahams, Benjamin Ward. Under Orders: War Crimes in Kosovo. 2001-10-26. https://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/kosovo/. Accessed 2026-09-16.
  3. [3]Departamenti i Shtetit i SHBA-së (faqja arkivore 1997–2001). Rambouillet Agreement: Interim Agreement for Peace and Self-Government in Kosovo. https://1997-2001.state.gov/regions/eur/ksvo_rambouillet_text.html. Accessed 2026-09-16.

Editorial status: Awaiting verificationDrafted from the cited sources; not yet fully reviewed by the editors.

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