Russia Is Said to Want U.N. Vote Delay

Russia initiated a diplomatic offensive over the weekend to prevent the U.N. Security Council from adopting a resolution today tightening sanctions against Yugoslavia, diplomats said.

President Boris N. Yeltsin sent a letter to President Clinton, presumably to get a delay in the vote that is designed to punish Serbs for resisting a peace accord in Bosnia-Herzegovina, they said.

Some Russian officials were contemplating a veto if the vote is held today as scheduled, the envoys added.

In Washington, London and Paris, officials contacted one another to decide whether to press for a vote and how to assess whether Russia would veto the measures.

Russia has not vetoed a Security Council resolution since 1984. Moscow has a policy of not abstaining on any vote, believing that differences with the four other permanent council members--the United States, Britain, France and China--must be worked out in advance.

Western envoys believed it would be risky for Moscow to cast a no vote ahead of a Group of Seven meeting in Tokyo this week when finance and foreign ministers of the major industrial nations will discuss aid for Russia.

Moscow’s U.N. ambassador, Yuli Vorontsov, presented a long list of objections to the resolution Thursday but then emerged from Security Council consultations with only two reservations concerning the 33-point document.

However, Moscow’s reservations on the sanctions proposals go deeper because Yeltsin is fighting for his political life against an increasingly nationalist Parliament in an April 25 referendum that will test his power. Yeltsin’s opponents have accused him of selling out the Serbs, who have historic and religious ties with Russia.

Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Vitaly Churkin, was in Washington over the weekend for talks with U.S. officials, including Reginald Bartholomew, the U.S. delegate to the U.N. peace talks on Bosnia.

The proposed Security Council resolution is aimed at preventing the government of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic from helping Bosnian Serbs in their fight against Croats and Muslims.