Bosnian Muslims Agree to Meet Enemies

Bosnian Muslims on Friday agreed to meet their enemies face to face for the first time, giving a boost to peace efforts in the region.

European Community peace negotiator Lord Owen said in Sarajevo, the besieged capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, that he had persuaded Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic to sit down with Serbian and Croatian leaders in Geneva on Jan. 2.

“We are certainly getting things into some form of order,” Owen said. Izetbegovic, a Muslim, described his decision as possibly “the most difficult decision I made in my life.”

Frustrated by the continuing civil war in Bosnia, the U.N. General Assembly, with U.S. support, Friday called for the use of force and a lifting of the arms embargo in the former Yugoslav republic.

The non-binding resolution was approved 102-0, with 57 abstentions. The abstentions included all 12 members of the European Community and Canada in their first major split with the United States on action in Bosnia.

In a separate action, the Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution calling for military escorts for European human rights monitors investigating reported mass rapes of Muslim women in Serb-run camps in Bosnia.

The resolution, adopted by a 15-0 vote, “strongly condemns these acts of unspeakable brutality” and supports a European Community initiative to dispatch an investigation team to the camps.

Meanwhile, President Bush on Friday granted refugee status to those fleeing the former Yugoslavia because of the violence there, the White House announced.