U.S. and Russia Called ‘Closer’ on Bosnia Plan : Balkans: Christopher meets with his Russian counterpart and reports progress. But broad disagreements remain.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Russian Foreign Minister Andrei V. Kozyrev claimed to be “drawing closer together” Thursday on plans for dealing with the carnage in Bosnia-Herzegovina--although they left little doubt that broad disagreements remain.

“We have agreed on a series of matters we want to discuss with our counterparts from France and the United Kingdom over the next few days,” Christopher said, without elaborating.

Kozyrev said the agreements are “very concrete, but we need to consult with other parties.”

Christopher plans to have lunch today with British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd and is scheduled to meet Monday with French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe.

Despite the effort by Christopher and Kozyrev to display their discussions in the best possible light, it was clear that if the United States, Russia and Western Europe ever reach the elusive consensus, it will be for measures considered very unattractive by Washington.

But after months of fruitless talk about ways to stop the bloodshed in Bosnia, U.S. officials have concluded that it is more important to find something--even if it is very little--that all can agree on than it is to hold out for preferred options.

“We’re in the process of making sausage,” one State Department official said in a wry admission that the negotiations are unappetizing but may produce something edible.

The official insisted that the Clinton Administration has not abandoned its “preferred option” of air strikes against Bosnian Serb military positions, combined with a relaxation of the U.N. arms embargo to permit shipment of arms to the Muslim-led Bosnian government. But he conceded that there is almost no chance that the Russians and the Western Europeans will go along with such a plan.

U.S. officials and allied diplomats have said that the most likely outcome is a plan--advocated in slightly different forms by Russia, France and Britain--that leaves Serbs in control of territory they have conquered and carves out “protected areas,” defended by U.N. troops, for the republic’s remaining Muslims. Even supporters of the plan concede that it ratifies the results of more than a year of brutal “ethnic cleansing” by the Serbs, although they say all other options are worse.

At the United Nations, members of the Security Council met in private Thursday afternoon but decided to take no formal action until next week at the earliest. Diplomats predicted an eventual compromise in which the United States would reluctantly accept the “protected areas” plan without sending U.S. ground troops to help defend them. The diplomats said Washington might supply air power in support of the U.N. forces in the Muslim enclaves.

Kozyrev also went to Capitol Hill for talks with congressional leaders Thursday. After meeting members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kozyrev said: “The problem here is not that we are arguing. . . . The problem is that nobody seems to have a . . . ready-made prescription.”

Late Thursday, Christopher announced that he and Kozyrev will visit the White House today for a meeting with President Clinton. The session was hastily arranged after reporters asked why Clinton was unwilling to meet the Russian foreign minister. Traditionally, Russian and Soviet foreign ministers have called on the President whenever they are in Washington.

Times staff writer Stanley Meisler, at the United Nations, contributed to this report.