Croatian President Backs 6-Week Extension of U.N. Troop Presence

Croatian President Franjo Tudjman Saturday backed a six-week extension of a U.N. mandate in Croatia to give negotiators time to thrash out a plan to return Serb-held areas to Zagreb’s control.

Tudjman said that as a goodwill gesture he was prepared to pull back his troops to a line six miles from areas of Croatia captured by Serb rebels in the 1991 independence war and now protected by U.N. peacekeepers.

“But in response, Croatia expects the Yugoslav federal army to withdraw to a point six miles from the Danube River and from other frontiers where Croatia borders Yugoslavia, that is Serbia and Montenegro,” Tudjman’s spokeswoman said.

“Croatia welcomes the proposals to prolong the existing mandate until March 31 but we want that time to be used in talks with representatives of the Serb population to ensure our conditions are implemented,” she said.

The U.N. peacekeepers’ mandate is due to run out next Sunday.

Serbs in the Croatian enclave of Krajina who earlier boycotted talks on a peace agreement for Croatia have agreed to attend discussions at the United Nations in New York this week.

But the talks could run into trouble because leaders of the self-styled Republic of Serbian Krajina are firmly opposed to ceding any territory to Croatia and have said they will continue to defy Zagreb’s authority.

Tudjman launched a military offensive against the Krajina region on Jan. 22. His forces captured a strategic bridge and dam near Croatia’s Adriatic coast in what political analysts said was both a display of Zagreb’s impatience with the United Nations and an attempt to garner support for local elections held last week.

In Bosnia-Herzegovina, a second city promised to join Sarajevo and reject aid shipments Saturday, further fraying relations between the government and relief agencies struggling to end the suffering in the war-torn country.

Sarajevo officials, backed by the Bosnian government, said Friday they would not distribute donated food until besieged Bosnians in the east are fed.

The 90 distribution centers around Sarajevo were quiet Saturday.

The United Nations canceled aid flights into the city, where fighting raged all day around the airport and shells battered the city center. A U.N. official said trucks would only deliver relief for two more days, and that some of the donated food was already spoiling.

Gen. Philippe Morillon, the commander of U.N. forces in Sarajevo, said it was “unacceptable and irresponsible” to withhold food from people who have survived the 10-month-old Serb siege of the capital thanks to relief shipments.

“If the supplies are kept from Sarajevo, everybody will die here,” Morillon said. “I hope the person responsible for this decision will decide to fast to the death himself.”