U.S. Officials Tell Bosnia’s Leader to Rejoin Peace Talks

WASHINGTON — Even as NATO officials continue to lay plans for possible air strikes against Serbian forces besieging the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, U.S. officials have made clear to Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic that “the cavalry is not coming to take his country back for him” and have warned him that if he does not rejoin stalled peace talks in Geneva, the Atlantic Alliance could abandon its plans, a senior Clinton Administration official said Thursday.

The NATO allies do not intend to try to use their power to roll back territorial gains the Serbs have made, the official made clear. “We have not offered NATO power for rollback,” the official said. “I don’t think any military man thinks air power can roll back forces.”

And even as the United States and its allies issue public threats to the Serbian forces, Administration officials have issued private warnings to the Bosnian leader.

“If it now looks to the world as though the prospect of NATO air support is causing him to backslide and substantially toughen his position, that would make it much less likely that NATO would act,” the official said.

“It’s very important he agrees to go back to the negotiations.”

The Administration has taken that position while simultaneously conceding that Western reluctance to aid the Bosnians until now has left, in the official’s words, “no chance” for a “fair” peace agreement in Bosnia-Herzegovina. With Serbian forces now dominating much of the country and Croatians having seized large parts of the rest, Izetbegovic has negotiated “with a gun at his head” and “has made enormous concessions,” the official said. “It would be obscene to call it voluntary.”

As Izetbegovic himself realizes, the official said, the Bosnian government and the people of Sarajevo cannot hope to survive another winter of siege.

Even with NATO action, the best that can be hoped for now is a deal that will leave the Bosnian government in control of roughly one-third of its former territory, along with some protected access to the outside world from Sarajevo, the official added. Even that result would require the Serbian and Croatian armies that have attacked Bosnia to give up some territory.

The grim assessment from the Administration came as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and representatives of warring factions in Bosnia approach what could be the final crossroads in the conflict.

President Clinton’s top national security advisers plan to meet today to discuss future action to take in Bosnia, White House officials said. But even as they prepared for the meeting, the best scenario Administration planners can imagine--one that leaves “little to be proud of,” the senior official said--would be that the Serbs and Croats may finally be “satiated.”

The Bosnian Serb armies, drawn mostly from a rural population suspicious of city dwellers, quite possibly never really wanted Sarajevo and would be willing to leave it once their other territorial gains are secure, the official said.

Should the Serbs fail to abide by new promises to cease offensive action and pull back from strategic positions overlooking the city, NATO will implement its plans for air strikes. The likely targets: Serbian-controlled roads, bridges, command and control centers and armament depots, the senior official said.

Despite a long record of broken Western promises to aid the Bosnians, the NATO threats are different, the official insisted, adding: “NATO’s credibility is at stake.”

Secretary of State Warren Christopher, in Jerusalem, said he will fly to Aviano air base near Venice today to look in on how NATO military planners are preparing for the possible strikes.

U.S. officials said Christopher’s visit to Italy will be designed to accomplish two goals--first, to bolster the credibility of the U.S. threat in the eyes of the Bosnian Serbs, and second, to underscore to America’s NATO allies the Administration’s determination to carry out the air strikes if necessary.

Aviano is one of several bases in Italy and Turkey at which the NATO forces have assembled warplanes for use in any air strikes.

NATO officials agreed to the U.S. plan for air strikes against the Serbs on Monday. Since then, NATO’s military commanders, led by U.S. Adm. Jeremy M. Boorda, have been meeting in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, with Gen. Jean Cot of France, who commands about 27,000 U.N. peacekeeping troops in the former Yugoslav republics. The purpose of the meetings is to draw up guidelines for the action.

The NATO planners will present the options to NATO ambassadors during a meeting in Brussels that is expected to take place on Monday. While one of the options probably will be approved at that meeting, it may not be implemented immediately, depending on the situation on the ground, the official said.

NATO’s statements so far have carefully avoided drawing any firm line that, if crossed, would force military action.

“I don’t think it’s possible to say in advance ‘Outrage X would trigger Response Y.’ You know it when you see it,” the official said.

While still weighing their options, alliance officials have resigned themselves to the virtual certainty that air strikes will kill some Bosnian civilians.

“There is no such thing as a surgical air strike,” the official said, adding: “Nobody wants to do it, but the time has come.”

Times staff writer Art Pine in Jerusalem contributed to this story.