Serb-Croat Agreements Isolate Bosnian Muslim Leader

Serbs and Croats agreed Monday on a nationwide truce and troop pullback that would take effect if all three warring factions worked out a settlement of the 15-month war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The two former enemies, in Geneva negotiating a peace plan for the former Yugoslav republic, also agreed that a transitional body representing the three factions should govern until new political arrangements take hold, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic said.

The accords, while needing ratification as part of an overall peace deal, further isolated Bosnia’s Muslim president, Alija Izetbegovic, who has refused to negotiate over a Serb-Croat plan to divide Bosnia into three ethnic states.

Karadzic warned Muslims that Serbs and Croats would carve the former Yugoslav republic into two rather than three if the Muslims did not negotiate.

An unknown is the strength of the Serb-Croat alliance, which is a recent development in a war that broke out after Muslims and Croats voted to break away from Serb-dominated Yugoslavia.

Widespread fighting was reported across Bosnia on Monday. Sarajevo Radio said that Serbian and Croatian fighters, enemies for most of the war, were on the offensive against Muslim forces around the towns of Maglaj, Zavidovici and Zepce about 50 miles north of the besieged Bosnian capital.