New Cease-Fire OKd as Bosnia Talks Enter Decisive Phase : Balkans: Serbian leaders say they expect the war-torn republic’s president to accept peace plan today. But he sees ‘no progress’ on borders.

Bosnia’s Muslim-led government and rebel Serbs agreed Tuesday on a new cease-fire as year-old negotiations to end the brutal war by splitting the country reached a decisive phase.

Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, meanwhile, said they expected Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic to accept a plan to split Bosnia-Herzegovina into three ethnic republics today.

“The conference continues . . . and we are expecting the Muslim side to sign the whole package,” Karadzic said as he emerged from daylong talks.

But Izetbegovic said no breakthrough has occurred in discussions on the boundaries of the ethnic republics.

“No progress so far,” he said Tuesday. “Maybe tomorrow.” Izetbegovic has been consistently downbeat in public comments about the peace talks.

He has slammed a peace plan proposed by international mediators as rewarding Serbian and Croatian aggression. But he fears the outgunned government forces and suffering Muslim civilians may not survive another winter.

Earlier, Bosnian Serb and government officials said the two sides agreed to a cessation of hostilities as part of a five-point plan. The three warring factions--Muslims, Serbs and Croats--have repeatedly agreed on cease-fires and then broken them.

Karadzic aide Nikola Koljevic said other provisions included prisoner exchanges and a telephone hot line between government headquarters in the capital of Sarajevo and the Bosnian Serb base in nearby Pale, the first such phone link since the war began nearly 17 months ago.

Izetbegovic and Karadzic also agreed to set up a joint commission to regulate electricity and water supplies in all cities and pledged to calm news media, which have been used to incite hatred among the three ethnic groups.

Government spokesman Mirza Hajric confirmed the agreement, which has yet to be signed and is separate from the plan to divide up the country. But he played down its importance.

Croatian President Franjo Tudjman said the Bosnian Croats have dropped their demands for changes in the borders on the proposed maps and are ready to sign the peace plan.

The Serbs have already said they will sign the deal proposed by mediators Lord Owen of the European Community and Thorvald Stoltenberg of the United Nations.

“We are waiting for Muslim acceptance of the peace plan,” said Milosevic.

Karadzic warned earlier that if the Muslims refused to sign the deal, Serbs and Croats would “divide Bosnia in two.”

Meanwhile, in the south-central Bosnian city of Mostar, Muslim civilians released about 50 Spanish peacekeepers and 12 armored personnel carriers Tuesday, five days after the troops escorted a U.N. aid convoy into the Croatian-besieged town.