Slovenia Says It Will Abide by Cease-Fire : Yugoslavia: The republic’s Parliament endorses a European peace accord. But the federal presidency and army are hesitant.

Slovenia’s Parliament voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to abide by a cease-fire while negotiating for independence with federal authorities over the next three months.

While the republic’s approval of the European-brokered truce removed one threat to a fragile peace now holding in Slovenia, the federal presidency and the Yugoslav People’s Army have yet to endorse the accord worked out Sunday on the Adriatic island of Brioni.

The collective presidency, which has met twice since the Brioni gathering, has been sending some disquieting signals over the past few days.

The Croatian chief of the ruling body, Stipe Mesic, has been reported too ill to attend the recent meetings, and the presidency has sought to impose additional conditions for observing the cease-fire.

Both Slovenia and the federal army continue to accuse each other of violating the cease-fire, which has held for a week and allowed the first steps toward restoration of normalcy in the breakaway republic since June 25, when both Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence from Yugoslavia.

The federal presidency’s hesitation in approving the peace plan has stirred speculation that the Serbian-dominated army may be pushing for further military action to halt Slovenian secession, which under the Brioni agreement will be all but granted after three months.

Serbia controls at least four of the eight presidential votes, and the largest republic has made clear that it opposes foreign mediation of the Yugoslav crisis.

Serbia’s Communist leadership also exercises much influence over the federal army, whose officer corps is 70% Serbian and staunchly loyal to the Communist system that has accorded it lavish pay and privilege.

The Brioni agreement calls for negotiations on Yugoslavia’s future to begin by Aug. 1 and for outstanding issues regarding Slovenian and Croatian independence to be resolved within three months. Earlier attempts to peacefully dissolve or restructure the 73-year-old Balkan federation were stonewalled by Serbian leaders, who insist on preservation of strong central rule from their capital, Belgrade.

The Yugoslav news agency Tanjug said the presidency will meet again Friday to discuss the peace plan but offered no explanation for the second postponement this week in the scheduled vote on the Brioni accord.

The presidency met Monday--without Mesic--and refused to approve the Brioni plan, saying Slovenia continued to violate terms of the cease-fire.

In Ljubljana, the Slovenian capital, lawmakers voted 189 to 11, with seven abstentions, to endorse the Brioni agreement after President Milan Kucan described the choice as “war or peace.”

Kucan also warned that failure to go along with the terms set down by senior officials of the 12-nation European Community would isolate Slovenia and anger the very Western countries with which it seeks to associate.

“If we reject the offer, the European countries will be justified in considering that their mission is finished and that they cannot and do not wish to accept any responsibility for the development of events and the uncertain fate and future of the peoples and nations in this region,” Kucan said.

But the president insisted that the three-month suspension of further moves toward secession--one of the terms of the Brioni accord--in no way dilutes the leadership’s commitment to independence.

Some Slovenian lawmakers denounced the peace plan as a sellout.

“Let us not forget we are in the Balkans, where lies and deceit are the highest moral values,” said Viktor Zakelj, a member of the Socialist Party.

He and others warned that the Brioni accord offers no guarantee that Slovenia won’t be attacked again.

Federal troops and tanks moved against the Slovenian territorial defense forces June 27 in a bungled attempt to seize control of border crossings and airports. An aerial blitz followed the next day in which a number of civilians were killed.

At least 62 people--mostly federal troops--died in the fighting in Slovenia before a precarious cease-fire was agreed to last week.

Slovenian Interior Minister Igor Bavcar claimed that hundreds more troops have been flown into the republic by the federal army. Republic officials also say at least 200,000 reservists have been mobilized in Serbia and Montenegro to prepare a major fighting force that would be loyal to Serbian interests.

The massive mobilization and a huge deployment of tanks and troops from Belgrade last week have also upset Croatian leaders.

Croatia’s information minister, Hrvoje Hitrec, told reporters in Zagreb that the republic fears an army assault will be launched within the next few days. Thousands of troops have been deployed to the Serbian border with Croatia and neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as to Serbian-populated regions of those republics.

No presidential order was issued for that deployment, in which 180 tanks and armored vehicles fanned out a week ago. There have also been repeated statements by hard-liners within the army threatening to crush independence moves by Slovenia and Croatia. Hitrec called for European Community cease-fire monitors to be stationed in Croatia’s ethnic trouble spots.