Bosnia Initiative Criticized at NATO Talks : Diplomacy: Little enthusiasm is seen for contributing more troops to protect safe areas.

The new allied plan for containing the fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina received a mixed reception Tuesday at a meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, suggesting that its sponsors have a good deal more work to do in finding the necessary troops and resources to carry it out.

At the opening of a two-day NATO meeting, the new allied proposal ran into sniping from Italy, which complained that it had not even been consulted about the plan, and objections by Germany that the scheme would only reward the Bosnian Serbs’ territorial gains.

German Defense Minister Volker Ruehe contended that confining the Bosnian Muslims to safe areas, as the plan proposes, would effectively ratify the seizure of their lands by the Bosnian Serbs. “We have to stick to the long-term aims of restoring territory to the Muslims,” he argued.

More important, there seemed to be little enthusiasm among the NATO governments for contributing additional peacekeeping troops to the effort, as called for in the allied plan--a potential shortfall that could doom the new proposal if the warring parties in Bosnia provide any serious resistance.

Britain and Spain, which already have troops stationed in Bosnia, hinted Tuesday that they would be reluctant to increase their peacekeeping contingents there, suggesting instead that the allied powers ask Russia and Ukraine to dispatch some of their forces.

Estimates of the total number of troops that would be needed to protect the safe areas range from 19,000 to 40,000. There are 9,500 U.N. peacekeepers in the area now.

Defense Secretary Les Aspin, who is representing the United States at the session, and other key U.S. officials continued meeting with Aspin’s counterparts into the night in an effort to win commitments for more troops.

The allied proposal would establish six safe areas in Bosnia to protect embattled Muslims, send more U.N. peacekeepers to Bosnia and Macedonia and step up monitoring of the Bosnian-Serbian border. The United States would provide air and naval cover for the U.N. forces but no ground troops.

Although NATO has played a major peacekeeping role in Bosnia--such as enforcing a “no-fly” zone that the allies imposed earlier this year and policing the economic embargo on Adriatic ports--it was not specifically assigned a part in the new plan.

Even so, officials said the allies may explore the possibility of asking NATO to take the lead in organizing the operation, if only because NATO forces are already accustomed to working together.

While the Bosnia proposal was not formally on the agenda of the annual conference of NATO ministers here, officials said the plan--announced in Washington on Saturday by the United States, Russia, Britain, France and Spain--was the No. 1 topic in behind-the-scenes meetings that were held Tuesday.

As the defense ministers were meeting, the Clinton Administration served notice that it has not abandoned its earlier proposal to lift the arms embargo on Bosnian Muslims and launch air strikes to help protect them, even though it has been rejected by Russia and the Western European allies.

U.S. officials sought to convey the impression that Washington believes the new allied plan will prove inadequate but is willing to endorse it for the moment to give the Europeans more time to come to the same conclusion.

Meanwhile, the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to establish an 11-judge court at The Hague to try Balkan war criminals. It would be the first international war crimes tribunal since shortly after World War II. But no procedure was established for bringing suspects to trial, and no site was set for the trials or detention.