Peace Proposals Bosnia Herzegovina

House Republicans held some of their fire Friday on a bill to prohibit President Clinton from sending U.S. troops to Bosnia-Herzegovina without Congress' approval, after top Administration officials warned that the measure might sabotage the peace talks in Dayton, Ohio.

In an attempt to breathe new life into the stalled Bosnian peace process, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on Thursday announced a package of new measures aimed at promoting ethnic integration and thwarting those opposed to the 18-month-old U.S.-brokered peace agreements.

Bosnia's rival groups stepped up their fight for key districts of Sarajevo on Saturday, just hours after U.N. peacekeepers managed to get their military commanders to sit down together for talks. Machine-gun and mortar fire rattled through the city's western suburbs overnight as Serbian forces appeared to be trying to link up with units in the north of the city. Sarajevo radio said Serbs bombarded the suburb of Dobrinja at dawn Saturday.

In a candid and somewhat discouraging assessment of the peace process in Bosnia, the outgoing commander of NATO forces here said Friday that unyielding political resistance from all sides could doom the U.S.-brokered accord that ended 3 1/2 years of war. Nearly six months after the Dayton, Ohio, accord brought tenuous peace to Bosnia-Herzegovina, U.S. Adm. Leighton W.

In a candid and somewhat discouraging assessment of the peace process in Bosnia, the outgoing commander of NATO forces here said Friday that unyielding political resistance from all sides could doom the U.S.-brokered accord that ended 3 1/2 years of war. Nearly six months after the Dayton, Ohio, accord brought tenuous peace to Bosnia-Herzegovina, U.S. Adm. Leighton W.

U.S.-run peace talks next week on the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina will be delayed one day so Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin can register his support by meeting with three Balkan leaders in Moscow. The Kremlin session set for Tuesday stems from Yeltsin's pledge to President Clinton to work with the United States to promote a settlement. But it also could be risky for the Russian leader.

Bosnian Serb and government officials refused to budge in negotiations Friday despite the first united appeal by U.S., Russian and European envoys to resolve the conflict. Bosnia's Muslim-led government has threatened to pull out of the talks unless Bosnian Serb fighters and heavy weapons are well clear of the battered Muslim enclave of Gorazde.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher and four European counterparts meted out a diplomatic wrist slap Saturday to the Bosnian Serbs after the nationalist rebels had rejected a last-chance peace plan, killed a U.N. soldier, reimposed a blockade of Sarajevo and fired on aid flights. The foreign ministers of the five-power Contact Group had billed their meeting here as a get-tough session aimed at punishing any Bosnian faction blocking the path to peace.

In the first-ever face-to-face talks among leaders of the three warring ethnic groups in Bosnia-Herzegovina, mediators Saturday proposed splitting the nation into 10 autonomous provinces. But the Muslim faction did not appear ready to compromise. The proposal by special envoys Cyrus R. Vance and Lord Owen of Britain came as Washington considered postponing enforcement of a ban on Serbian flights over Bosnia until mid-January. Vance, a former U.S.

Despite stern warnings of military reprisals, the self-styled parliament of Bosnia's rebel Serbs today refused to approve an international peace accord, deciding instead to put it to a vote of the Bosnian Serb people. The vote defied pressure from the Serbs' backers in Yugoslavia and abroad and heightened prospects of military intervention to end Europe's bloodiest conflict since World War II.

Three Balkan power brokers who hold the key to peace in their beleaguered region came together here Saturday facing direct and intense international pressure to recommit themselves to the Bosnia peace agreement they signed two months ago. Presidents Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia, Franjo Tudjman of Croatia and Alija Izetbegovic of Bosnia-Herzegovina were in effect summoned to the hastily scheduled summit by U.S.

Mihajlo Markovic is out of a job, recently purged from Serbia's ruling party after daring to disagree publicly with Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. Markovic's ouster was not surprising; he had fallen from grace some time ago. What made his departure remarkable was the manner in which it came about. Markovic and several other top officials of the Socialist Party of Serbia were dumped during an unusual party meeting last week.

His admirers handed former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt the hottest potato in Europe on Friday, choosing him to lead an ambitious international attempt to reconstruct Bosnia-Herzegovina. The 46-year-old Bildt was the unanimous choice of a conference here implementing last month's Dayton, Ohio, peace accord, but his appointment as proconsul came with only vague descriptions of his powers.

House Republicans held some of their fire Friday on a bill to prohibit President Clinton from sending U.S. troops to Bosnia-Herzegovina without Congress' approval, after top Administration officials warned that the measure might sabotage the peace talks in Dayton, Ohio.

With Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic calling it "the day of our determination, the day of our hope," Bosnia's government agreed Friday to relinquish most civilian authority to a Muslim-Croat federation. Although the federation has existed on paper for 20 months, the pact signed by leaders of Bosnia's three warring factions at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base sets out its structure for the first time.

Meeting on the British aircraft carrier Invincible in the Adriatic Sea two years ago, the leaders of Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia were hours away from signing a peace agreement when it crumbled amid fear and recrimination. Those talks, one of the last times the three presidents met face to face, revealed details of their personalities and the dynamics of their relationships that are sure to shape the tone and pace of negotiations that began in Ohio this week.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher conceded Monday that he has not yet won the approval of any European nations for specific military measures directed against Bosnian Serbs, but he said he has found a growing consensus that firm action must be taken if the Bosnian Serbs fail to live up to a peace agreement signed in Athens.

President Alija Izetbegovic called a meeting of the Bosnian Parliament and public figures for Friday to discuss the latest Bosnian peace plan agreed to in Geneva. But he told a news conference Sunday that he will not be able to recommend that the assembly, meeting in the central Bosnian town of Zenica, should vote in favor of the plan to divide Bosnia-Herzegovina into three ethnic ministates.

The Clinton Administration is following a high-pressure, intensely focused strategy in its efforts to wring a peace settlement from the three warring Balkan factions now engaged in talks at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. After three days of talks, the outlines of the U.S.