Serbia’s President Puts Pressure On Bosnian Serbs To Accept Peace End Of Three-Year Economic Sanction Spurs Milosevic Effort

Basking in the glow of a newly sanction-free Serbia, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic turned up the pressure on his Bosnian Serb allies Thursday and reportedly secured their begrudged acceptance of the U.S.-brokered Balkans peace agreement.

Leaders of the Serb separatists were emerging as potentially deal-breaking hold-outs by refusing to accept an accord that gives them their own ministate but sacrifices their claim to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, an emotion-charged symbol for both sides of the war. The Bosnian Serbs’ resistance threatened to undermine the peace deal and stall the deployment of 60,000 peacekeeping troops from the United States, its NATO allies and 15 other countries.

Milosevic on Thursday summoned Bosnian Serb leaders to a secret meeting at an estate outside Belgrade, where it was believed the president ordered compliance to the accord reached Tuesday in Dayton, Ohio. Following the meeting, Tanjug, the Yugoslav state news agency, reported that the Bosnian Serb chiefs, including hard-line leader Radovan Karadzic, accepted the plan despite serious objections.

Tanjug said Milosevic and the others agreed to address the Serbs’ objections in further negotiations, although it was not clear what shape such talks would take.

The speaker of the Bosnian Serbs’ self-declared parliament, Momcilo Krajisnik, who left the Dayton negotiations blasting the agreement as treason, also attended the session with Milosevic, Tanjug said.

There was no immediate statement from the Bosnian Serb leadership, nor was there independent confirmation of the new position.

If true, the Serbs’ acceptance would remove a troublesome obstacle that could have endangered U.S. and NATO soldiers, who will make up most of the peacekeeping force.

For Milosevic, the peace deal is of utmost importance because, in exchange for his role in making the agreement happen, international economic sanctions imposed against the rump Yugoslavia three years ago have been suspended.

The punitive measures, originally imposed because of Belgrade’s role in fomenting war, could be reinstated, however, if the agreement is not signed at a ceremony next month or if it is otherwise violated by the Serbs.

In addition, Milosevic repeatedly assured U.S. officials that he could ensure Bosnian Serbian adherence to terms of the accord, and he has also pledged to remove Karadzic from power.

With those incentives, Milosevic probably argued to the Bosnian Serbs that they would no longer receive military, logistic or political support from Belgrade, all of which have continued despite an official ban.

Combined with government mismanagement, the sanctions crippled the Yugoslav economy. Unemployment soared, factories closed and a once-prosperous middle class virtually disappeared. Although removal of the sanctions will not cure all of these ills, it will give a boost to business and, Milosevic believes, begin to restore pariah Yugoslavia to the international fold.

Russia welcomed the end of U.N. economic sanctions against Belgrade and assigned a delegation to go there next month to revive two-way trade. Russian contracts to sell gas to Belgrade had been frozen by the sanctions. Moscow abstained on the U.N. Security Council’s decision Wednesday to lift an arms embargo against all former Yugoslav republics. A spokesman for President Boris N. Yeltsin said Russia wanted the quantity of arms in the region reduced, not increased.

While welcoming the peace accord reached in Dayton, Russian officials have emphasized the difficulties of implementing it. Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, returning to Moscow from Dayton, said Russia still hopes to host a Moscow summit of the presidents of Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia like the one that was postponed last month.

“All sides are interested in holding such a conference,” Ivanov said. “The peace process is just beginning and … at some stage there should be a meeting in Moscow.”