Peace Force for Yugoslavia Rejected by EC

The European Community called Thursday for the nine-nation Western European Union to explore ways to reinforce its monitoring mission to stop the fighting in Yugoslavia.

The declaration by foreign ministers of the 12-member EC overruled a proposal by France and Germany to seek U.N. approval for a larger peacekeeping force to keep the warring factions apart in the shattered Balkan state.

The EC said that the Western European Union, formed in 1955 for collective self-defense and political collaboration, will explore ways “in which the activities of the monitors could be supported so as to make their work a more effective contribution to the peacekeeping effort.”

This would consist mainly of providing logistic and support troops for the 200 monitors, diplomatic sources here said. Contrary to what France and Germany had called for, the EC declaration emphasized that “no military intervention is contemplated.”

The watered-down declaration was viewed as a victory for the British--who oppose a large-scale, hasty peacekeeping operation.

The Serbs also oppose any military peacekeeping operation in Yugoslavia, with Serbian Foreign Minister Vladislav Jovanovic arguing after a round of talks with Britain’s Lord Carrington, chairman of the peace talks begun earlier this month: “To send troops into a country without its agreement, that’s not a peacekeeping force, that’s an invasion.”

At a news conference, and in later remarks, he added: “An EC peacekeeping force would support the secessionist policy of Croatia. Yugoslavia has to solve our own problems.”

Jovanovic and Croatian Foreign Minister Zvonimir Separovic accused each other’s forces Thursday of breaking the cease-fire that was to take effect Wednesday on the Serbian-Croatian frontier. The peace talks resumed Thursday but broke off in the afternoon with little progress reported.

Lord Carrington, the former British foreign secretary and former secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, said they will be resumed here next Thursday.

The EC foreign ministers all agreed that it would be pointless to send a peacekeeping force to Yugoslavia unless a firm cease-fire is in place. Further, they said a U.N. or EC force must be requested by all warring factions in Yugoslavia.

Germany and France presented a statement, agreed on in Berlin by French President Francois Mitterrand and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, urging the United Nations to consider sending a peacekeeping force. “We must do everything to secure an effective monitoring of this cease-fire,” the statement said.

While Serbians reject the idea of the force, the Croatians and Macedonians favor it. The EC ministers were unhappy with the Serbian line, tacitly supported by Yugoslav federal officials.

Britain expressed caution about such efforts, with Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd citing his nation’s experience in Northern Ireland, where British forces have been stationed for 22 years. He asked ministers to consider an oil embargo to encourage peace in Yugoslavia.

German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the Western European Union chairman, said that a working group will meet in Bonn on Monday, hoping to report back on ways to support EC monitors in Yugoslavia.