|
|
|
BOSNEWS digest 447 -- 28/10/95
CONTENTS
[01] LATEST DEVELOPMENTS ON THE DIPLOMATIC FRONT AND ON THE GROUND IN THE BALKANS
[01] LATEST DEVELOPMENTS ON THE DIPLOMATIC FRONT AND ON THE GROUND IN THE BALKANS
After a second straight day of talks today, Russian Defense Minister Pavel
Grachev and Secretary of Defense William Perry have still not resolved
differences in their plans for integrating Russian troops into the planned
NATO-led force to implement a peace accord in Bosnia. Russia has refused to
allow its troops to serve under NATO command, while the U.S. and its allies
have insisted on overall NATO control. State Department spokesman Nicholas
Burns said that NATO is prepared to carry out the mission without Russian
troops participating if no compromise is reached. A preliminary meeting
between Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, Croatian President Franjo
Tudjman, and Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic scheduled to be held in
Moscow on October 31 was cancelled today due to Russian President Yeltsin's
ill health. The three Balkan leaders will attend peace talks at
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, beginning on November 1.
Bosnian Serb officials reportedly offered to allow international human rights
organizations access to regions of Serb-controlled territory where thousands
of Muslim and other non-Serb men and boys might have been massacred or are
possibly being detained in concentration camps. However, U.S. Assistant
Secretary of State John Shattuck said, "Words are words until there's
action." Two to three thousand Muslim men and boys remain missing from the
Banja Luka region. They were part of a group of several thousand non-Serbs
that Serbian forces expelled from the region earlier this month. Many
observers fear that the missing men and boys have been massacred, just as
thousands were executed in mass killings in Srebrenica three months ago.
Bosnian President Izetbegovic said yesterday that peace can not come to
Bosnia unless all war criminals are removed from power.
|
