NATO Broadens Threat to Launch Bosnia Air Strikes : Europe: Clinton and allies state readiness to save other areas as well as Sarajevo. Military action appears more likely, but Security Council approval is needed.

President Clinton and the 15 other Western Alliance leaders Tuesday broadened NATO’s threat to intervene in Bosnia-Herzegovina, declaring they are prepared to launch air strikes in two areas--in addition to Sarajevo.

The decision effectively extends the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s warning made last August to use air attacks to prevent the fall of the Bosnian capital to include the besieged Muslim enclaves of Srebrenica and Tuzla.

“We reaffirm our readiness, under the authority of the United Nations Security Council, “ said Tuesday’s declaration, which came at the end of the two-day NATO summit meeting, “to carry out air strikes in order to prevent the strangulation of Sarajevo, the safe areas and other threatened areas in Bosnia-Herzegovina.”

An additional phrase, agreed to by the NATO leaders only at the last minute, said that NATO officials should draw up expanded plans for air strikes.

The decision, which Clinton stressed was made unanimously after prolonged official-level discussions Monday night and into the early hours Tuesday, appeared to make Western military intervention somewhat more likely. Clinton told a post-summit news conference that an actual decision to use force “depends largely on what the Bosnia Serbs do.”

Under the terms of NATO’s potential involvement, however, no air strikes can be launched without the approval of the U.N. Security Council. Although the declaration widens and toughens the circumstances under which the alliance would use force in Bosnia, Clinton said he did not interpret it as a lowering of the tripwire that would send NATO aircraft--mostly American jets--into action.

“I don’t know that the threshold is lower,” the President said, “but there are more instances in which air power can be used now under the NATO policy.”

Whether or not air strikes would actually be launched, the President said before a NATO audience, “depends on the behavior of the Bosnian Serbs from this moment forward. . . . And what the military commanders come back and recommend.”

Inclusion of the Tuzla region--where nearly 1 million people live in the largest area still under Bosnian government control--in NATO’s new plan is aimed at reopening the airport in the eastern Bosnian city. That installation, which rebel Serbian units have kept closed, is considered vital for the flow of relief supplies to the region’s beleaguered civilian population.

Air strikes to free the enclave of Srebrenica, southeast of Tuzla, would enable trapped Canadian forces among the U.N. peacekeepers there to be replaced by fresh Dutch troops. That transfer has been prevented by hostile Serbian forces.

Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who had warned against any new NATO threat, remained defiant Tuesday as his followers continued to besiege Sarajevo with an artillery assault. He reiterated an earlier position by stating, from his base just outside the capital, that the alliance declaration “would prompt us to reconsider land concessions offered to the Muslims.”

And in the Yugoslav capital of Belgrade, the Bosnian Serb army’s chief of staff, Manojlo Milovanovic, played down the seriousness of NATO’s new threats, the Associated Press reported. “They cannot strike at us without also hitting U.N. forces,” he said. “Our tactics are to keep close to the U.N. troops.”

On Monday, Clinton had warned that the alliance should not use threatening language against the warring forces in Bosnia unless it was prepared to carry out the threats.

At his Tuesday news conference, Clinton insisted that because he had recommended that strong language against the Serbs not be included in the declaration unless the alliance meant business, the threat was therefore real.

NATO Secretary General Manfred Woerner also insisted that the alliance was prepared to act militarily. “My impression is that there is a clear determination not to continue the (Bosnian) situation as it stands,” he said.

When asked whether NATO had a choice of acting militarily or “packing up and leaving,” Woerner replied, “Preparedness to leave, no--preparedness to do what is necessary.”

The agreement on air strikes reportedly came after a recommendation by the French and British, who along with the Canadians and Spanish have troops in the former Yugoslav federation under U.N. auspices.

But a senior White House official told reporters aboard Air Force One that France and the United States were never at loggerheads over Bosnia and had reached basic agreement last week.

At a NATO leaders’ dinner Monday night, French President Francois Mitterrand and British Prime Minister John Major pushed for action on Srebrenica and Tuzla. Clinton said yes, but only if the declaration also reaffirmed the NATO commitment to Sarajevo, the official said.

He said any use of U.S. air power at Srebrenica and Tuzla would be close air support of U.N. troops, and he added that the United States was also willing to supply technical assistance such as electronic equipment for the Tuzla airport.

But the official flatly ruled out any commitment of U.S. ground troops.

He said Major and Mitterrand were not enthusiastic about the idea of air strikes around Sarajevo, and he expressed concern that use of force there might constitute a major escalation, because it would constitute direct intervention on the side of the city’s largely Muslim defenders.

The agreement on Bosnia came at the end of an extraordinarily successful European debut for Clinton in Brussels, the first leg of his first trip to the Old World as President.

As he departed for Prague later in the day, he could look back on a number of considerable achievements. Among them:

* He presided over the rejuvenation of an alliance that had lost its way amid the debris of the Cold War, restoring its sense of purpose and cohesion. “A historic turning point,” Woerner said. At a news conference, Woerner said the leaders of the alliance were “impressed with the strong leadership, resolve, and personal conviction of the American President.” Other leaders made similar comments.

* He was able to announce Monday a major agreement with Ukraine and Russia to eliminate more than 1,800 warheads from Ukraine, now the world’s third-largest nuclear power.

* He sold his initially controversial “Partnership for Peace” initiative to some skeptical allies in such a way that, in the end, all signed on enthusiastically. The plan offers close military cooperation with the new democracies of the former Soviet empire, stopping short of offering the full NATO membership that many of these countries wanted.

* He blessed European unity and an independent West European security grouping in a manner that made Europeans glow yet at the same time underscored America’s commitment to the continent by pledging to keep 100,000 troops there.

* With European Union Commission President Jacques Delors nodding approvingly beside him, Clinton also urged the rich nations of Europe to open their markets to the struggling new democracies to the east, arguing that increased trade is a key ingredient to the prosperity needed to fend off rising nationalism in the region.

* He survived the sensitive Bosnia issue and, although the alliance’s new position hardly marked a bold departure, the President kept both his dignity and NATO’s unity intact.

* Perhaps most important for transatlantic relations in the medium term, Clinton touched a chord among Europeans from prime ministers to taxi drivers that triggered an outpouring of warmth and goodwill in Western Europe unseen since the 1963 visit of another youthful American President--John F. Kennedy.

The overall mood of the summit itself in many ways merely reaffirmed that at times of genuine crisis, Europeans appear willing to stop bickering among themselves and look to the United States for leadership.

Times staff writer Doyle McManus contributed to this report.

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