U.S. Department of State 95/11/27 Daily Press Briefing

From: Thanos Tsekouras <[email protected]>

U.S. State Department Directory

DEPARTMENT--Announcement

Secretary Christopher's Schedule: Mtgs. on Bosnia;

  Possible Congressional Testimony; Trip to Europe ......1

FORMER YUGOSLAVIA

London and Paris Conferences/Signing of Peace Agreement .1-2,5-6,10

Length/Conditions of Deployment of NATO Troops ..........2-3,5,7-9

Radovan Karadzic Statements on Peace Agreement ..........3-4

Suspension/Lift of Sanctions ............................7

Assistance for Refugees .................................9-10

Russian Military Participation ..........................11

[...]

EUROPEAN AFFAIRS

Mediterranean Conference in Barcelona ...................18

MR. BURNS: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the State Department briefing. I have one very short announcement, and that is that Secretary Christopher will be remaining in Washington this week. He will not be accompanying the President on the President's trip to the United Kingdom and Ireland.

The Secretary is planning a busy week of meetings on Bosnia, and I think there is a very good chance of some congressional testimony on Bosnia later in the week.

He plans to leave Washington Friday evening for Madrid. He will get into Madrid a little bit ahead of the President. He will be having some meetings to prepare for the United States' meetings with the European Union on Saturday, and he'll be with the President when the President has meetings in Madrid on Saturday evening and on Sunday.

Following that, the Secretary will proceed to Brussels, where he'll take part in the North Atlantic Council meetings on Bosnia and on NATO enlargement.

Beyond that, the Secretary has not made any ironclad decisions on his schedule. We're trying to work out with the Europeans the sequencing of the London and Paris conferences on Bosnia, and so his specific schedule beyond Brussels is a little bit up in the air right now. But as soon as we get some firm decisions, I'll pass them on to you.

For those of you who would like to accompany us to Madrid and to Brussels and perhaps to points onward after that, you would be most welcome. We'll have a sign-up sheet in the Press Room following the briefing today.

Barry, I'll be glad to go to questions.

Q Some clarifications. Both London and Paris are meetings that are flexible. There isn't a locked-in date for the meetings -- because Paris, after all, involves a signing.

MR. BURNS: That's right. The London Conference, we believe, will precede the Paris Conference, and that will deal with implementation issues -- a variety of issues concerning the effort by the international community to help ensure peace in Bosnia.

The Paris Conference is a formal signing of the Dayton peace agreements -- the Dayton agreements that were initialed last Tuesday. So we are now working with the French and British to try to identify some mutually convenient dates for everybody concerned for both of those conferences.

Q The signing will be at a ministerial level, do you know?

MR. BURNS: That hasn't been determined yet.

Q Let me ask you a substantive question, if I may. In listening to the Secretary -- and, of course, (Secretary) Perry and General Shalikashvili tried to make the case for troops in Bosnia -- they emphasized that they have an exit strategy, and that it's a year's duration. They would like to get the troops out, intend to get the troops out within a year.

Senator Warner, for one, yesterday I believe was saying that, you know, troops should be prepared to stay if they have to stay beyond a year. Is that one year an immutable deadline? Is it possible American troops could be engaged in Bosnia longer than a year?

MR. BURNS: The President said in his letter to Speaker Gingrich a couple of weeks ago that it would be roughly a year. He didn't commit himself to 365 days. It could be a little bit less; it could be a little bit longer.

But I think, Barry, we believe they will be roughly a year, because our military commanders, who have looked at this question of how to ensure a peace agreement on the ground through the deployment of NATO troops, believe that the limited and clear mission that we have identified for the NATO forces can be achieved in roughly about a year.

You know what the mission is. It is to separate the forces. It is to patrol the separation of forces in a demilitarized area, and it is to provide general security for the borders of the new state as that new state gets off the ground.

No more questions on Bosnia? Good. We'll go on to another issue. (Laughter) There's got to be another question on Bosnia. Maybe not.

Q I have one on Bosnia. Have you seen the latest statements by Karadzic about the unacceptability of some parts of the agreement? Does that disturb at all your calculations on whether it would be possible to serve as -- for U.S. troops to serve as peacekeepers without excessive risk?

MR. BURNS: Those statements are perhaps not surprising, given the track record of Mr. Karadzic and some of his associates. But the statements will not deter us from our mission to have this peace agreement signed in Paris and to have a NATO force deployed to help ensure the success of this peace agreement.

The facts are the following: President Milosevic was the leader of the Serbian-Bosnian Serb delegation at Dayton, and that agreement that he would lead those talks was adhered to, I believe, on the 30th of August several months ago. That's the first fact.

Secondly, President Milosevic has assured all of us who were at Dayton -- the European Union, the Russian Federation and the United States -- that the Serbs and the Bosnian Serbs -- and the Bosnian Serbs -- would comply fully with the terms of the Dayton Agreement.

Third, the Bosnian Serbs -- specifically, Mr. Karadzic -- initialed the Dayton Agreements the day after they were initialed here in Dayton.

Fourth, President Milosevic sent a letter to President Clinton, as did the other heads of state at Dayton, assuring President Clinton that the conditions that we believe are important for the deployment of the NATO military force will be put into place by local officials on the ground.

We expect the NATO forces to deploy. We do not expect any organized resistance to this. It is not surprising, however, that individuals -- particularly civilians who will be affected by this in and around Sarajevo and elsewhere -- took to the streets the other day to protest. It's not surprising that they're unhappy.

But the facts are that the Dayton Accords represent a fundamental compromise. The Bosnian Government had to compromise. The Bosnian people, the Moslems, the civilians, have had to compromise. The Croats had to compromise. The Bosnian Serbs must also compromise.

They had said formally they will comply with the Dayton Accords. We fully expect that will be the case.

Q Have you been led to anticipate that the so-called Bosnian Serb parliament will be voting on this, and what sort of status would such a vote have in terms of whether this agreement is binding or not?

MR. BURNS: I don't know if the so-called Republic of Srpska parliament will vote on this or speak in any formal way. What matters to us is that President Milosevic has initialed the agreement, will sign the agreement in Paris; that he has given us ironclad assurances that the conditions that we need to deploy will be there; and that Mr. Karadzic, who at least currently is the leader of the so-called Republic of Srpska, has initialed the agreement. That means more to us than some public statements.

I would also note that his public statements in Belgrade are very different than his public statements in Pale, which is also not surprising. But actions are a lot more important than words, and the actions so far, I think, are leading us towards the signing of a peace agreement in Paris and its fulfillment through the deployment of a NATO force.

Sid.

Q Does Mr. Karadzic have to resign some position under the accord? I know you don't really recognize his position, but is there some need for him to resign, to step down?

MR. BURNS: We have said many times as a result of the Dayton peace talks, we do not believe that Karadzic or Mladic, both indicted war criminals, will be positions of power, command positions, for very long.

How he steps down from power is really up to him to decide. But we don't think it's appropriate that two indicted war criminals would lead at least the Bosnian Serb part of the entity -- the country that's being created -- and we think there are certainly a lot of people who could take their place who are not indicted war criminals and who are more responsible people.

Q Is there some kind of deadline as far as you're concerned?

MR. BURNS: I don't believe anyone has set up a deadline, but it's our very firm expectation that these two individuals have seen their best day, and their best days are behind them.

Q Nick, will there be any difference between the agreement that was initialed in Dayton and the agreement that will be signed in Paris?

MR. BURNS: There should be no substantive difference between them. We are not in any mood, in any way inclined to negotiate or renegotiate any aspect of this agreement. This agreement was reached after four months of negotiations, the last 21 days of which were in Dayton.

We didn't hear any complaints about it the day the agreement was initialed. We now have the so-called leader of the Bosnian Serbs, who has also initialed the agreements, and, therefore, there's no reason to renegotiate any aspect of it.

Q If I could follow up, what is the purpose of this two-week gap and two separate ceremonies if not just to soothe European egos?

MR. BURNS: First, Mark, it was important for everybody who was at Dayton to go back home and have a chance to explain what happened at Dayton and to fully inform their populations -- whether it's Bosnians, Moslem, Croatian or Bosnian Serbs -- as to what these peace agreements entail for them; for the countries as a whole but also for people individually.

We've seen a little bit of the reaction to that over the weekend in the demonstrations in the Sarajevo suburbs. It's not surprising that we saw that reaction, but we are not inclined to renegotiate any aspect in reaction to those protests.

Q Nick, if --

MR. BURNS: I just want to finish the answer. So the first reason was to give all the parties, including the United States, the ability to come back and fully explain, in our case to our Congress -- certainly in the case of the Bosnian Government to its parliament -- the facts of the Dayton Agreement, and to make sure that there was adequate public consultation on them.

Secondly, as you know, when the peace agreement is signed, there will be a very quick military deployment by NATO to follow, and NATO needs to work out the final stages of its military plan -- its operational military plan. The President has not yet been fully briefed on that. That will happen at some point in the next week to ten days. That has to occur.

So actually the fact that we have this breathing space, if you will, or period of rest between the peace conferences, is a very good idea, and it has been practically important. The reason for the conferences is that not only must we work out the military deployment, which is being done in Brussels, we have to work out arrangements for a civilian implementation of the civilian side of the agreement -- assistance for reconstruction, the establishment of an adequate police force for Bosnia-Herzegovina -- both things that will be helped in large part by financial assistance and planning by the United States, by the European Union and by member governments.

So all those things are occurring during this two-week period, and we're looking forward now to moving forward to a successful completion of all these stages.

Q I just wondered, Nick, if initialing doesn't foreclose any revision. I mean, initialing locks it in place, doesn't it? Isn't that what an initialing process does?

MR. BURNS: We explained at Dayton exactly --

Q I mean, legally.

MR. BURNS: Yes, that's exactly right. We explained to the parties at Dayton before they initialed, our interpretation of what initialing is. We said, "When you initial, you are committing yourself to fulfill all of the terms of this agreement." So legally speaking, it's tantamount to signing.

The signing is formal. There will be more ribbons on the treaty. It will look different. It will look more like a peace negotiation from the history books. It will be in an ornate hall, and so forth, and everyone who should be there will be there. But the fact that they initialed commits them to fulfill the terms of the Dayton Agreement. That's how we are looking at it, Barry.

Chris.

Q You say you are relying on cast-iron assurances from Mr. Milosevic for the Bosnian Serbs to cooperate fully. Does that mean he's going to be held fully responsible if they do not come on board?

MR. BURNS: He has committed to us that they will be on board. He has committed to us that all aspects of the agreement will be fulfilled; that the conditions necessary to deploy 60,000 NATO forces will be put into place. We certainly hold him responsible for that.

But I don't mean to direct that at him in any negative way. He has taken it upon his own shoulders. When he received the letter from the Patriarch in late August, when he issued his public statement from Belgrade on August 30 saying that he would lead the joint delegation, he took full responsibility for these matters on his own shoulders. That was the basis for negotiating the subsequent agreements on September 8, September 14, October 5, and now the Dayton Peace Talks on October 21.

Everything that followed diplomatically followed the creation of the joint Serb-Bosnian Serb delegation.

Q Putting it further down the road, the Bosnian Serbs start placing serious obstacles in the path of this agreement becoming implemented. Is it possible that any sanctions could be reimposed? They haven't even been formally lifted; only suspended. Is that pressure going to be kept on Mr. Milosevic in the future?

MR. BURNS: I would say, first of all, we would certainly appeal to President Milosevic to get the Bosnian -- any recalcitrant Bosnian Serb elements in line. I think that would be our first recourse before we looked automatically to sanctions.

But as you know, there remains the so-called "Outer Wall" of sanctions that are important to Serbia, that will remain in place and will not be suspended for some time until we see compliance with this accord.

I should also note that when the United Nations acted last week, it acted to suspend but not fully lift. Full lift comes when full implementation of the agreement occurs. I believe that is linked in part, at least, to the successful holding of elections and to the monitoring of those elections and the judgment of the international community that those elections were, in fact, free and fair.

Q The Secretary mentioned that the troops wouldn't go in unless they were safe. Assistant Secretary Holbrooke mentioned yesterday there would need to be compliance before the troops go in.

I'm just wondering if there are steps that need to be taken on the ground between now and Paris that would indicate to you that, apart from pockets of unorganized resistance, that the Bosnian Serb forces, in proper, are moving in the right direction.

MR. BURNS: What distinguishes this particular deployment of American forces from, say, Korea or Vietnam or Lebanon in the early 80s' is that these forces are not going to be injected into the middle of a civil war.

What distinguishes this agreement from others is that there is a peace accord to which all parties have committed themselves. They have specifically committed in letters to President Clinton that they will undertake to ensure that certain conditions are put into place and certain preparations made so that this force can be successful in what it has to do. That's very different than the deployment of U.S. Marines to Lebanon in the early 80s' or the deployment of American military forces to Vietnam in the late 50s' and early 1960s.

We will be continuously in touch with the Serbian Government, the Bosnian Government, the Croatian Government as we prepare to deploy to ensure that those conditions are met.

Q If I could follow on that particular point. According to Annex 1(a), Nick, there are 30-day time limits for withdrawal of foreign forces and for the redeployment of forces to barracks within Bosnia.

Nick, when does the clock start? When the Paris treaty is signed?

Second question would be, is NATO going to watch to see if there is compliance with Annex 1(a) before deployment? Are we going to jump on in whether anything happens or not?

The third question is, is there any happening on the ground right now that shows us that the parties are conforming to Annex 1(a) in the treaty?

MR. BURNS: I don't have my treaty with me. So let me just -- we can all go back and check that. But I believe it is 30 days after signing, but let me check that.

Q Most of --

MR. BURNS: Our strong expectation is, and every signal that we've received privately from all these parties is that the conditions will be appropriate to deployment of a force.

We are anticipating the deployment of NATO military forces.

Q Is one of those conditions prior to the deployment that Karadzic and Mladic be off the scene before NATO troops go in?

MR. BURNS: We have simply said in the past, and I'll say again today, that we find it inconceivable that when this peace agreement takes affect, when forces are deployed, when the new government is formed, that those two individuals will be in command positions. That continues to be our very strong expectation.

It is up to them, and perhaps up to the Serbian President, to decide how that happens, when that happens, who takes their place. We have a very great interest in this because we believe as indicted war criminals they should be held responsible for their actions. They should be at some point handed over for prosecution. But we don't have our own timetable for when that should happen, but we certainly have a clear point of view.

Q If one of the three will not sign the agreement -- the formal agreement that you said earlier -- how is that going to affect your plans for the deployment of forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina?

MR. BURNS: It's a hypothetical question. Right now, the three have said that -- they have requested the deployment of the NATO force; that they have sent letters to the President saying they'll put the conditions in place to make the force successfully. They've given us no indication that they will change their views on that very important matter.

So I prefer not to answer a hypothetical question at this point. Let's just proceed the way we are. If we encounter problems, we can discuss them.

Q Nick, can you please share with us the position on the refugees on the ground? Is there any update, from now until Paris, will the refugee issue be discussed and how it should be negotiated in the later part of the -- when it's implemented?

MR. BURNS: It's one of the great problems of this entire war, the fact that hundreds of thousands of people have become refugees. The peace agreement calls for the right of refugees to return to their homes or to receive just compensation.

If they are unable, for whatever reason, to return to their homes, this is one of the issues that the civilian implementation will focus on -- the United Nations, the European Union, member governments like the United States, who will be working on the civilian side, will be focusing on this issue.

This will not be one of the primary concerns -- it cannot be -- of the NATO military force. We do not want to see, as Mr. Lake said yesterday on television, "mission creep" here. We want to see a limited military mission.

The other aspects of the situation that need to be ameliorated -- reconstruction for the infrastructure, which has been badly damaged from war; a rebuilding of the communications network there; assistance for refugees. All of these things have to be tended to by the Bosnian Government and the international community, but on the civilian side. Not by the deployment of military forces.

Q Nick, are any Bosnian Serbs supposed to sign the Paris agreement? And, if so, which ones?

MR. BURNS: I believe there is provision for that. I don't know if any decisions have been made by the Bosnian Serb joint delegation. We'll just have to see what transpires.

Yes, Chris.

Q A new subject?

MR. BURNS: Yes.

Q There are increasing reports in the last few days of fighting in Chechnya. How concerned are you that this could escalate in the coming weeks with the elections there, the first anniversary of the major Russian intervention? What's your reaction to the upsurge in fighting?

MR. BURNS: Yes, we're very close. I think the anniversary will be on December 11. We're very close to that.

The United States continues to be concerned by the level of violence in Chechnya, concerned by the fact that the representatives of the Chechen people and the Russian Government have not been able to resolve all of their problems. We continue to make those concerns known to both sides.

Q Is there any more that Moscow could be doing?

MR. BURNS: At this point, I think that we've got to hope that the Chechen leadership and the Russian Government can achieve some progress in their negotiations which are fruitful -- which are on and off again - - so that the innocent people who continue to be killed by the warfare can be saved in the future. It's a very regrettable situation. I think both sides would agree with that sentiment.

Q On a related topic. Does the Administration have any concerns about the fact that the Russian commander who led the Chechen operation will be leading their participation in the Bosnian operation as well?

MR. BURNS: I just didn't know that would be the case. Who are you referring to?

Q Shevtsov.

MR. BURNS: Colonel General Shevtsov has been the individual that has been negotiating with us and others in Brussels about how Russia would participate in the military operation. I'm just not aware right now of what his personal role was in the Chechnya operation.

The fact is that a great number of Russian troops and a great number of the elements of the Russian military -- diverse elements -- were involved in one way or another in the Chechnya conflict. That does not mean that everybody involved in that conflict should somehow be spurned by the international community. But that's really all I have to say on that.

Q The biography the Pentagon gave out says he's commander of that operation. Do you have any comment on that, and take the question?

MR. BURNS: I don't have any further comment. Yes, Mark.

[...]

Q What do you expect from the European and Mediterranean Conference in Barcelona?

MR. BURNS: I'm afraid I don't have any particular comment on that, but I can take the question and look into it for you.

Q Thank you.

MR. BURNS: Thank you very much.

(The briefing concluded at 2:07 p.m.)

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