Rebel Muslim Signs Pact With Bosnian Serbs : Balkans: Observers say move by leader of Bihac pocket may have little practical effect.

Rebel Muslim leader Fikret Abdic, who controls a patch of northwest Bosnia in defiance of the Muslim-led government in Sarajevo, signed a peace agreement Friday with Bosnian Serbs.

He made the pact in Belgrade with Radovan Karadzic of the self-proclaimed Bosnian Serb Republic and Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who predicted it would “bring peace to half of (Bosnia).”

In a joint declaration, Karadzic recognized the Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia, which Abdic set up in the Bihac pocket after the Bosnian Parliament last month rejected an international peace plan to end the 18-month civil war in Bosnia.

Political sources said the agreement is unlikely to have much practical effect.

Abdic controls less than one-third of territory he claims for his province in the Bihac pocket after Bosnian government forces moved in to quash his rebellion.

Bosnia’s Muslim president, Alija Izetbegovic, retaliated by dismissing him from the collective presidency.

Abdic, who has fostered business links with Croats and Serbs throughout the conflict, told reporters after the meeting: “I have no obligation to Izetbegovic, but I have many obligations to the people of western Bosnia. The goal of forming this province is lasting peace in Bosnia.”

He traveled to Belgrade after a meeting in Zagreb on Thursday with Bosnian Croat leader Mate Boban at which they agreed to cooperate in ending the war, which followed Bosnian independence from the former Yugoslav federation.

Karadzic said Bosnian Serbs would not give military aid to Abdic in his struggle with Izetbegovic and added: “It is enough help that we will no longer fight.”

The International Red Cross suspended efforts to exchange hundreds of Bosnian Muslim and Croat prisoners of war Friday because fighters on both sides refused to guarantee the safety of the swap.

Red Cross officials reported that the exchange broke down when Bosnian government forces and the Croat Defense Council refused safe passage across combat zones for their vehicles.

The prisoners were to have been taken from the disputed southern Bosnian town of Mostar, which is under siege by Croats.