The three-hour meeting, held in an airport hotel, confirmed Russia's adamant opposition to the NATO offensive. ``The sooner NATO ceases air strikes the easier it will be to find a solution,'' Ivanov said at a joint news conference.

He described the dispute as ``a cul-de-sac'' but joined Albright in pledging a continuing exchange between the United States and Russia on the Kosovo conflict, which has caused a deep rift in their relationship. Albright said the two sides agreed, at least in principle, that there must be an end to repression, a pullout of Serb troops and police from Kosovo, a return of displaced refugees to their homes and access for humanitarian organisations.

But Ivanov stressed they did not agree on the demand of the United States andits allies that a NATO-led peacekeeping force be deployed in Kosovo after a settlement to protect the ethnic Albanian civilians who have been the target of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's forces. Ivanov insisted the United Nations has a role in peacekeeping and said ``any form of international presence requires the agreement of the government of Yugoslavia.''

Milosevic has insisted all along that NATO troops could not be stationed on Serbian soil, and NATO's overture to Russia to be included in the force evidently was not enough to swing Moscow behind the idea. However, Ivanov did not close the door completely. ``What the force is, we should discuss in the future,'' he said. Before the Albright-Ivanov meeting, her spokesman, James Rubin, said, ``we believe Russia has a constructive role to play in helping to bring about and implement a settlement.''

Today's meeting follows a North Atlantic Council meeting in Brussels in which the 19 NATO allies considered having Russian and other European troopsjoin in enforcing a settlement in the province if Yugoslavia accepts peace terms.

Kosovo woman corroborates reports of rape

LONDON: Harrowing testimony from a Kosovo woman who said she was gang-raped by Serb soldiers was broadcast on television today as Britain said there was evidence of the systematic rape of ethnic Albanians.

The report was shown by the BBC after Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said stories had emerged that women were being raped in a Yugoslav army camp at Djakovica in southern Kosovo. `Drita, speaking anonymously, told the BBC that she and seven women were separated from their families. She said the women were gang-raped by Serbian soldiers and four of them killed, including one who was seven months pregnant.