Britain Backs Bosnia Drop--to a Point

British Prime Minister John Major told President Clinton on Wednesday that Britain will support--but not participate in--a U.S. plan to parachute food and medicine to isolated villages in war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The British, wary of the safety of their troops in Bosnia, have said they feel land transport of aid is more effective than an airlift.

In the two leaders’ first meeting, Clinton and Major discussed the possibility of imposing harsher sanctions on Serbia, generally considered to be the aggressor in the year-old Yugoslav civil war.

Clinton insisted at a White House news conference that the United States has no intention of sending ground troops to the Balkans. “It would be a great mistake to view this humanitarian operation as an initial foray to a wider military role,” he said.

Leaders of the Serbian-dominated Yugoslav army charged Wednesday that the U.S. plan is merely a pretext for military intervention. But they said that Serbian forces would not interfere.

In the meantime, U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali dropped his insistence that the relief effort be conducted under U.N. authority.

And in Moscow, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reiterated Kremlin support for the U.N. peace plan formulated by negotiators Cyrus R. Vance and Lord Owen and called for intensive peace talks to continue.