Salvador Leader Assails U.N. Plan to Preserve Peace

President Alfredo Cristiani sharply criticized a U.N. plan to preserve El Salvador’s fragile peace Wednesday and said promised military cuts will be delayed until leftist guerrillas destroy all their weapons.

“We cannot accept that there are political conditions that merit a rescheduling (of the peace accords), which is what the U.N. secretary general’s proposal brings,” Cristiani said in a televised address to the nation.

His response could heighten tensions surrounding the 10-month-old peace process, which has been threatened in recent weeks by delays, political disputes and assassination threats.

Cristiani reluctantly accepted the U.N. plan to extend the deadline for full guerrilla demobilization from Oct. 31 to Dec. 15, but he rejected a parallel proposal setting new dates for political reforms and military cuts laid out under peace accords signed in January.

“The government is going to stop everything concerned with the plan of demobilization, reduction and restructuring of the armed forces. . . . It is not prepared to renew this process until all the (guerrillas’) weapons are being destroyed,” Cristiani said in his address.