U.S. Seeks Ouster Of Bosnian Serb Leaders Deployment Of American Troops Seems To Depend On Removal

As Bosnian peace talks got formally under way in Dayton, Ohio, Thursday, the United States pressed a demand for the ouster of Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic before committing up to 25,000 troops to police a final agreement.

Questions about U.S. objectives seemed to multiply Thursday as envoy Richard Holbrooke handed the presidents of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia meeting at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base U.S. proposals for an overall peace agreement and a revision of Bosnia’s constitution.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher seemed to condition the deployment of U.S. troops on the removal of the two leading Bosnian Serb personalities but not necessarily of the regime they led. The troops would be part of a NATO force of up to 60,000.

“We can’t really expect that forces of NATO would be there at the same time those individuals were in positions of power,” Christopher said Wednesday night.

“We can’t conceive of those two individuals … in positions of authority after an agreement is reached … they are indicted war criminals,” his spokesman, Nicholas Burns, said Thursday under questioning from reporters.

But Burns would not say whether the United States would link the lifting of economic sanctions against Serbian-led Yugoslavia to the willingness of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic to oust the two men. Instead he said it was a decision that “the people on the ground, the Bosnians and the Bosnian Serbs and the Serbs are going to have to work out.”

And as for subordinates of Karadzic and Mladic, he said there was no plan to exclude them from power unless they are also indicted by the War Crimes Tribunal.

“If people are indicted … and they’re significant people and they’re holding significant jobs, we’re obviously not going to favor that they retain those jobs,” he said.