Associated Press
Sunday, May 23, 1999; 10:06 a.m. EDT

LONDON (AP) — British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said Sunday that NATO must be ready to deploy ground troops in Kosovo as soon as they are required, even if that means sending troops into a ''non-permissive environment.''

''We must make sure we are ready to take advantage of the success of the air campaign when that time comes,'' Cook told the British Broadcasting Corp. ''We need to be ready to go into Kosovo and take the refugees home as soon as the military tells us it is appropriate and safe to do so.''

He said that would require a ''much bigger'' ground force than initially anticipated, possibly between 40,000 to 50,000 troops.

Cook also repeated Britain's claim that NATO must be ready to deploy the troops ''in a permissive or a non-permissive environment.''

Of the 19 NATO nations, Britain has been the most aggressive about the need to consider sending in ground troops with or without Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's consent.

Cook told the BBC's Breakfast with Frost program that the force would ''be more than just a peacekeeping force.''

He said it would be a ''substantial military force'' that would be ''capable of making sure that Milosevic could not threaten Kosovo again.''

Cook, who had just returned from a trip to the United States, denied that any rifts had emerged in NATO over the question of deploying ground troops.

He told the BBC that all 19 countries agree ''there can be no compromise on that bottom line, that refugees have to go back and they have to go back with a NATO force.''

Cook said NATO would not stop the air attack until it achieved those goals.

''We really ought to have the stomach to continue,'' he told the BBC. ''I think we have to finish the job.''

At the daily Ministry of Defense briefing, Foreign Office minister Tony Lloyd said NATO was close to making a political decision about increasing its available ground troops.

''We are close to a political decision being made to ratify the options examined by NATO planners,'' he said.

Lloyd also said that diplomatic initiatives remained underway, and that Cook was planning a trip Wednesday to Rome, Paris and Bonn to meet with his counterparts.