Bosnian Serbs Will Remain at Peace Talks in N.Y.

The leader of Bosnia’s Serbs said Tuesday that he will remain at peace talks and that an earlier report that he would withdraw was the result of a misunderstanding.

Radovan Karadzic told a news conference that he is committed to a political settlement in Bosnia-Herzegovina and had been making progress toward peace. Earlier, Britain’s Lord Owen, the mediator for the European Community, had told reporters that Karadzic was leaving.

But Karadzic said at the news conference that he will stay in New York and meet with Owen and U.N. mediator Cyrus R. Vance today.

Owen told reporters that Karadzic has refused to accept a key proposal to divide Bosnia into 10 semiautonomous provinces.

Also Tuesday at the United Nations, the Security Council delayed voting on a resolution authorizing NATO to shoot down violators of a “no-fly zone” the United Nations declared over Bosnia in October. Serbian planes have been the main violators and angered the council by recently carrying out air raids over eastern Bosnian villages.

In the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, U.N. officials said that French and British helicopters will begin ferrying wounded from the besieged Muslim enclave of Srebrenica today.

The airlift into Sarajevo was suspended for a fourth day because of fighting near the airport, but heavy Serbian shelling of western suburbs died down. U.N. officials said they could not determine whether Serbs had gained ground in Monday’s attack on Stup, a suburb outside the city.