Croatians Abandon Dubrovnik’s Center : Yugoslavia: Defense forces retreat as the federal army advances to the city limits. Residents are offered evacuation today.

Croatian defenders abandoned the old walled center of Dubrovnik on Friday as the Yugoslav army advanced to within the city limits, Croatian officials said.

Defense officials in Croatia’s capital, Zagreb, said their forces retreated to nearby Gruz harbor under Yugoslav army gunfire that was in violation of a cease-fire agreed upon in Zagreb the day before.

Army officers and city officials met 10 miles south of Dubrovnik at Cavtat on Friday afternoon, and the federal force renewed its cease-fire pledge at 5 p.m., according to Croatian television.

But the station said afterward that some explosions were heard in Dubrovnik. The army positions were outside the medieval walls that are the core of the city, but inside the greater Dubrovnik area, the report said.

According to the same TV report, the army said it would evacuate all people seeking safe passage from Dubrovnik today. The army had blocked three entrances to the Adriatic resort of 60,000 residents, and navy boats were only 100 feet from the city’s ancient walls.

In Zagreb, Croats mourned the apparent loss of Dubrovnik, which has maintained its independence throughout centuries while the rest of Croatia was under the rule of Byzantine, Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian and German occupiers.

“It survived Napoleon . . . it survived the Germans and it survived the Communists, and now the Yugoslav national army’s destroying the city, which was never destroyed in history,” said Srdjan Matic, executive vice president of Zagreb’s small Jewish community. “From a strategic military point of view, it has no value.”

Defense officials, reached in the northern Croatian port of Rijeka, said earlier that all telephone lines to the ancient port were cut and that Dubrovnik’s defenders radioed distress signals that were picked up in Ancona, Italy.

The Yugoslav news agency Tanjug reported Friday a warning from an army officer that Dubrovnik should surrender in order to ensure its preservation.

At EC-sponsored peace talks in the Netherlands, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic rejected the latest EC peace plan, which would demilitarize and give limited autonomy to the Serbian ethnic region within secessionist Croatia.

However, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman said he had met privately with Milosevic and the Serbian president agreed to bilateral talks. Milosevic, speaking to reporters just before Tudjman, did not mention any planned talks.

Lord Carrington, the conference chairman, said the EC mediation effort would continue. But he criticized the federal army for its “worrying and threatening” assault on Croatia.

Tudjman also wrote to world statesmen, including President Bush, calling on them to take measures against the Serbian leadership, Zagreb radio reported.

Fierce battles continued Friday in other parts of the republic, particularly the war-torn eastern towns of Osijek and Vukovar, and in Karlovac and Sisak, south of Zagreb. One person was killed and 13 injured in Sisak, 25 miles southwest of Zagreb, Croatian defense officials said.

Croatia declared independence on June 25, but armed ethnic Serbs declared autonomy in regions of Croatia and have since captured about a third of the republic.

More than 2,000 people have died in the civil war.