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U.S. Envoy Attempts to Resolve Bosnia’s Train-and-Equip Plan
By Carol Giacomo
WASHINGTON, June 7 (Reuters) -- A senior U.S. envoy will make an unscheduled trip to the Balkans this weekend to try to resolve problems over a defense law preventing the arming and training of Bosnia's Muslim-Croat army, the State Department said Friday. James Pardew, who heads the so-called arm and equip program, will travel to Sarajevo and Zagreb to try to iron out the latest in a continuing series of disputes between the formerly hostile Muslim and Croat factions, spokesman Nicholas Burns told reporters.
The parliament of Bosnia's Muslim-Croat Federation Tuesday again deferred a defense law intended to integrate the armies of the two groups within three years. It said the bill needed more work by the government. This occurred despite new promises to Secretary of State Warren Christopher by Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic and Croatian President Franjo Tudjman in Geneva only last Sunday that "everything was taken care of" concerning the law, Burns said.
"Unfortunately, there has been some backsliding this week and there's been some continued bickering among Croats and Bosnians," the spokesman said. "We don't think it's going to be an insuperable problem but it is a problem now."
The defense law controversy represented a fresh setback to the "equip and train" program intended to make the Muslims and Croats a match for the more heavily armed Serbs by the time the NATO-led peace-keeping force IFOR leaves Bosnia at the end of the year. On top of $220 million in refurbished U.S. military equipment, Washington had so far won pledges of $140 million for the program from other countries including Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia.
Burns repeated comments by Pardew Thursday that the promised U.S.-led program to train and equip the new Bosnian Croat-Muslim force cannot proceed until the defense law is enacted. "You can't give military assistance hardware, but more importantly training, to an institution that doesn't exist," Burns said. "The defense law is going to create a combined command center, combined units and integrated military force ... We can only give assistance and commence training opportunities when those structures have been established," he said.
Initially, the arming and training program was being delayed by the failure of the Bosnian government to expel all foreigners, mainly Iranians, who formerly helped it fight the Serbs, and to end an intelligence relationship with Tehran.
But U.S. officials said that is no longer a serious factor and it is expected that within a few days, U.S. demands will be fully satisfied. Burns said the number of foreign fighters had fallen from about 2,000 to four persons who are "no longer part of an armed force, who no longer have any relationship with the Bosnian government but still are physically present in the country."
"I wouldn't be surprised if they don't leave in days... I'm absolutely convinced that President Izetbegovic will take the action to get these people out," he said. Beyond that, "we can now certify that Iranian revolutionary guard camps have been torn down and no longer exist, that the military training ... provided by Iranian revolutionary guards and other Islamic fighters has ceased, that all of the command positions, command centers and the encampments where they were living have gone away," he said. |
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