U.S. Dealt Setback in Efforts to Seek Overall Peace Accord in Bosnia

The Clinton Administration is attempting to move beyond the cease-fire in Sarajevo to negotiate a peace agreement for all of Bosnia-Herzegovina, but its initial efforts have failed to produce the quick results some officials hoped for, aides said last week.

The State Department’s special envoy, Charles E. Redman, went to Sarajevo last week to ask the Muslim-led Bosnian government to provide its “bottom line” terms for a final settlement, but the divided Bosnians said they were not ready to make a proposal, officials said.

Instead, the Muslims have reopened some issues that the Administration thought were already solved--and suggested that they may demand more territory than the 33.3% of Bosnia-Herzegovina they agreed to last year, officials said.

Some Bosnian military commanders have even argued that the government should take advantage of Western threats of force against their adversaries, the Bosnian Serbs, and mount a new offensive on the ground.

These complications have dealt a setback to the Administration’s hopes that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s threat of air strikes against the Bosnian Serbs around Sarajevo could produce new momentum toward an overall settlement of the 22-month-long Bosnian war.

And they have raised the paradoxical prospect that the United States, after setting out to help the Bosnian Muslims defend their interests, may begin to think of them as too stubborn in their demands.

“I don’t have any sense that they are on the verge of announcing a draft settlement,” State Department spokesman Mike McCurry said.

“The peace process is moving, but it’s not going to happen instantly,” a senior State Department official said. “The Bosnians are divided over what to do.”

Another senior official, asked how long the Administration’s peace initiative will need before it shows results, said: “We’re talking about months.”

Bosnia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Muhamed Sacirbey, said he was certain his government would opt for a negotiated peace over continuing the war. “We are committed to the peace track,” he said. But he added that it would take time to settle on the “bottom line.” Sacirbey confirmed that the Bosnian Muslims may ask for more than the 33.3% of Bosnia that they accepted in negotiations last year. “The limit of 33.3% is an open issue because so many other questions are open,” he said.

A U.S. official said: “That’s in the middle of the negotiations that are going on right now.” The Muslim-led Bosnian government now holds less than 20% of the country’s territory, and giving them even 33.3% would require that the Bosnian Serbs turn over large areas that they have taken by force.

In part because of the Bosnians’ delay in coming up with a peace proposal, the Administration may take a more active role in offering suggestions for the shape of a settlement, one official said.

That is a sensitive point for President Clinton and Secretary of State Warren Christopher, for they have repeatedly pledged that the United States would not pressure the Bosnian Muslims, as victims of aggression, to accept any particular outcome.

In fact, however, senior State Department officials have already settled privately on what they see as a realistic outcome to the war--an outcome many Bosnians would view as unacceptable.

The State Department officials said the elements of a realistic settlement appear to include:

* A three-way partition of Bosnia according to the formula worked out in U.N.-sponsored talks last year, giving 49% to the Serbs, 33.3% to the Muslims and 17.5% to the Croats.

* An exchange of territory under which the Muslims would give up three besieged towns in eastern Bosnia--Srebrenica, Zepa and Gorazde--in exchange for land around Sarajevo. The Bosnian government has rejected this, demanding that the three enclaves be linked to Sarajevo with protected roads across Serbian territory.

* A loose confederation that would leave open the possibility that Bosnia’s Serbian and Croatian areas would unify with Serbia and Croatia--another outcome the government has rejected.

In part to nudge all three factions toward a settlement, senior U.S., European and Russian officials may meet in Europe this week “to focus on what a likely package looks like,” a senior State Department official said.

In addition, Bosnian Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic plans to come to Washington in hopes of determining how much the Bosnians can ask for and still enjoy U.S. support.

Administration officials insist that they will not pressure the Muslims to accept anything. However, they acknowledge that they have let the Bosnians know--gently--that the United States will not support them forever if they refuse a settlement that is reasonable in American eyes.

The picture is further complicated by the suddenly renewed enthusiasm of Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin for a major role in the negotiations. Russian nationalists have complained that the West was victimizing the Serbs, who like most Russians are Eastern Orthodox Christians; and Yeltsin has responded by promising to protect the Serbs’ interests.

“The sense of Yeltsin’s letter (to Clinton last week) was: ‘You’ve got your dog in this fight and we’ve got ours--but where during the Cold War that would have put us on opposite sides, this time we’re in cahoots, trying to get everybody to agree to a settlement,’ ” a senior official said.

“The only problem is that the Serbs don’t need a good deal. The Serbs already have a good deal. . . . So there’s a bit of a dysfunction there,” he said.

If negotiations do progress, the Administration will face another problem that officials don’t like to talk about: Carrying out a peace agreement will require money and troops. Clinton has promised to provide as many as 15,000 U.S. peacekeeping troops if a settlement is reached--but his eagerness to send them may fade rapidly as the November congressional elections approach.