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Warren Christopher to Intervene At Weekend Talks in Geneva
By Carol Giacomo
With the United States and its European partners facing increasingly urgent pressures, he will make another stab at persuading the presidents of Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia to make maximum effort to ensure that fair elections go off as planned.
His spokesman declined to be more specific and another senior official would say only: "We have some ideas" that will be previewed with Milosevic by Kornblum.
U.S. officials have made it a practice since taking the lead last year in negotiating an end to Bosnia's 43-month-old war to have Christopher on hand to close specific agreements. He last met the Balkan presidents in Geneva in March when they issued a joint statement recommiting themselves to key aspects of Dayton. Christopher hosted a meeting of senior Croat and Muslim officials in Washington May 14 that agreed on a common defense law for Bosnia's Muslim-Croat federation.
The Bosnia peace accords specified that indicted war criminals could not hold office. Although Karadzic and Mladic have remained in power for the past six months, their presence now is more pressing because Karadzic especially is seen to be thwarting plans for Bosnia's first post-war elections.
The U.S. goal of withdrawing its 20,000 peacekeeping troops from Bosnia by year's end could be imperiled if reasonably free elections legitimizing Bosnia as a state are not conducted. Washington has made clear that for the time being removing Karadzic and Mladic from positions of power is more important than having them sent to The Hague for trial on war crimes charges, though that remains an eventual goal.
During his day in Geneva, Christopher is also expected to urge Bosnian Muslims also to stop throwing obstacles in the way of elections and to expel the remaining "handful" of Iranian Muslim fighters Washington says are still in Bosnia.
If Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic can vouch that those forces have left, Christopher could announce the start of a more than $200 million program to arm and train the Muslim-Croat army so it is more equal to that of the Serbs.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Warren Christopher intervenes directly again in the shaky Bosnia peace process when he convenes day-long talks with Balkan leaders Sunday in Geneva.
U.S. State Department Policy on Bosnia
Warren Christopher Biography
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