Bosnia Leadership to Resume Talks

Bosnia’s leadership yielded to foreign pressure Sunday and decided to resume peace talks with its enemies but remained opposed to a plan to carve the country into three ethnic provinces.

After a six-hour, closed-door meeting in Zagreb, the seven attending members of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s 10-man presidency also said they had made progress on their own plan for holding the country together, but they gave no immediate details.

Bosnian Vice President Ejup Ganic told reporters that a delegation will return to peace negotiations in Geneva within 10 days.

The peace plan, which is endorsed by Serbia and Croatia, calls for splitting the country into three ethnic regions. The Bosnian government opposes it because of fears that the Serbian and Croatian areas would unite with Serbia and Croatia, leaving Muslims in a small and isolated territory.

The alternate plan that the presidency supports would restructure Bosnia as a three-province federation, with none of the provinces having a predominant ethnic group.

The Bosnians have little leverage in negotiating.

With the collapse last month of a tenuous alliance between Croatian fighters and government forces, the Bosnian army is severely outgunned and cornered logistically.