Allies Resist U.S. Plan on Bosnia : Diplomacy: Their questions could lead to revisions of proposals for the use of military force, Christopher says. New Serb bombardment is called a ‘serious setback.’

Secretary of State Warren Christopher said Tuesday the Clinton Administration will have to revise its plans for the use of military force in Bosnia-Herzegovina to respond to questions raised by European allies.

“I am hearing out their questions and their concerns, which I will report back to the President,” Christopher said. “That could involve some adjustments of the various proposals that we have.”

Nevertheless, Christopher said he is not discouraged by his talks with British, Spanish, Greek and French leaders. He is in Moscow today to confer with President Boris N. Yeltsin, who has already served notice that he will not rubber-stamp the Administration proposals either.

Talking to reporters aboard his Air Force jetliner on the flight from Paris to Moscow, Christopher said European leaders have pinned their hopes on the Bosnia peace agreement signed Sunday in Athens. He said they are not yet ready to settle on specific military action to be taken if the peace pact fails.

But he said the new Bosnian Serb artillery bombardment of the Muslim-held town of Zepa on Tuesday was a “serious setback” for the peace agreement hammered out by international mediators Cyrus R. Vance of the United Nations and Lord Owen of the European Community.

“It would indicate the parties are not going forward in good faith,” he said. “It underscores the importance of continuing” consideration of punitive measures.

Zepa, about 30 miles east of Sarajevo and only six miles west of the Serbian border, is one of two Muslim-controlled enclaves left in eastern Bosnia. Tens of thousands of people have taken refuge there from the fighting.

The U.N. high commissioner for refugees has said that Zepa and another Muslim town, Gorazde, should be designated “safe areas” under U.N. military protection.

Reports from the region said the town was ablaze from Serbian shelling and that up to 100 people are dead or wounded. A U.N. spokesman in Sarajevo said the United Nations had no one in position to report on events in Zepa and so could not confirm that the enclave was under attack.

Reports of fighting at Zepa came the day before the Bosnian Serb assembly reconsiders the Vance-Owen peace plan that it rejected earlier. Another rejection of the plan would bring more calls in the West for action to try to end the Balkan fighting.

Before Christopher left Washington last Saturday, President Clinton approved a package of measures, including military action. Although the details were not officially announced, the plan is widely believed to call for allied air strikes on Serbian artillery emplacements and other military strongpoints and modification of the U.N. arms embargo on all of the former Yugoslav federation to permit shipment of weapons to the outgunned Muslims.

Some news reports said that U.S. Special Forces are already in Bosnia to collect intelligence and spot potential targets for air attacks. But Clinton denied that Tuesday, saying: “I saw the report. I don’t know what the basis of it is. I have not authorized that at all.”

The Europeans have expressed reservations about the American package while urging the United States to commit its ground troops to a peacekeeping force assigned to police the Vance-Owen peace agreement.

Christopher said he has reached agreement with French President Francois Mitterrand and Prime Minister Edouard Balladur that the world community should send tens of thousands of peacekeeping troops to Bosnia as quickly as possible.

“In the scenario that is the most probable scenario--the scenario we want to be most probable--we have said it would be necessary to establish on the ground a major U.N. peacekeeping force,” French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said.

“In the second scenario, an unfortunate one, if the (Vance-Owen) plan is not ratified, then we agreed to talk about the new measures that could be taken and we’ve excluded no measures. We’ve decided to remain in contact.”

Christopher has said repeatedly that successful implementation of Vance-Owen is the “preferred option.” But he has made it plain that he is more skeptical than the Europeans about the chances of a durable peace.

“If Athens turns out to have been another cynical ploy by the Serbs, if they are unable to move forward on the agreement that was signed there, I think it will have a very dramatic impact on the thinking in Europe because they are holding out considerable hope for going that particular route,” Christopher said. “If their hopes are dashed, that would have a dramatic impact.”

Nevertheless, the best Christopher has been able to get from the allies he has contacted so far is an agreement to keep talking about the subject. He said that additional consultations will be necessary before an international consensus can be hammered out.

After he completes this trip Friday, Christopher said, additional meetings will be required to settle on a policy in the event the Vance-Owen agreement collapses.

Although the United States could probably take some action on its own, Christopher said Tuesday that Washington will act only in conjunction with allies and the United Nations. So the consultations are critical to the Administration’s strategy.

Before Christopher’s arrival in Moscow, Vitaly I. Churkin, the Russian deputy foreign minister and Yeltsin’s top adviser on Bosnia, made it clear that the Russians will look critically at the U.S. proposals.

“The head of American diplomacy is coming to Russia to exchange views in terms of working out a common policy, not to brief us on a decision already taken,” Churkin said. “This will be a dialogue, not a monologue.”

Many of Yeltsin’s nationalist opponents accuse him of having sold out Russia’s fellow Slavs and traditional Balkan allies, the Serbs, to curry Western favor.

Last Thursday, the conservative-dominated legislature, which the Yeltsin government has largely ignored, formally voted to require Foreign Minister Andrei V. Kozyrev to use Russia’s U.N. Security Council veto to prevent “possible military intervention by international forces in the Yugoslav crisis.”

In a way, Moscow is Christopher’s most important stop because the talks here will include Western aid to Russia’s staggering economy and arms control issues in addition to consultations over Bosnia policy.

Times staff writer John-Thor Dahlburg contributed to this report.

* PEACE PLAN ROADBLOCK: Bosnian Serbs to vote on plan they’ve already rejected. A6