Competing Peace Plans Considered : Diplomacy: Agreement proves elusive as world leaders discuss building on Sarajevo success. Risk is of only a temporary respite.

World leaders from Washington to Moscow picked their way through a thicket of competing ideas about how to apply the lessons of Sarajevo to other war-torn cities Tuesday but found they could not even agree on what caused Bosnian Serb militias to stop shelling the Bosnian capital.

The muddle, if not resolved soon, could limit the impact of the Sarajevo cease-fire and risk making it no more than a temporary respite in the bitter ethnic conflict.

In Bonn, diplomats from the United States, Russia, the European Union, Canada and the United Nations discussed ways to build on the Sarajevo cease-fire but made no firm decisions.

They spoke favorably about a French proposal to seek Sarajevo-style truces in other U.N.-designated “safe areas”--the cities of Tuzla, Srebrenica, Zepa, Gorazde and Bihac. But at Russia’s insistence, the diplomats said that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization should not threaten air strikes against Bosnian Serb forces surrounding the other cities.

The Bonn meeting underlined a basic disagreement between the United States and its NATO allies on one side and Russia on the other over what prompted the Serbs to withdraw or surrender most of their guns surrounding Sarajevo.

In NATO’s view, that would have never happened without the threat of air strikes. But Russia, which adamantly opposes NATO bombing, insists it was Russian diplomacy that persuaded the Serbs to pull back.

Even among the Western allies, there was no agreement on when or how to take the next step.

The Clinton Administration called for at least a brief period of consolidation to make sure that the Sarajevo cease-fire will hold before turning to additional steps. Defense Secretary William J. Perry warned that it might yet become necessary to bomb Bosnian Serb positions around Sarajevo, and he made it clear that he is in no hurry to take on a similar responsibility for other cities.

“I can’t tell you how relieved I am that we did not need to call on those young men to go on those air strikes,” Perry told the House Armed Services Committee. “But the mission is not yet over. We may still need to call on them.”

“The success of the NATO ultimatum regarding Sarajevo came in part because it was a very specific mission tasked very effectively by military planners,” said State Department spokesman Mike McCurry. “We’re in a position now where we are trying to consolidate those gains that have occurred around Sarajevo and then figure out how you branch out from that.”

At the United Nations, officials said that there is an urgent need for more peacekeeping troops, especially if there is an attempt to stop shelling in other areas of Bosnia.

“I want to underline in the strongest possible terms the need for more troops, particularly if we move into areas and try to stop the shelling,” said Joe Sills, the spokesman for Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

Sills said that Kofi Annan of Ghana, the U.N. undersecretary general for peacekeeping, had asked for 2,500 more troops. So far, no nation has indicated that it is ready to provide the soldiers.

The meeting in Bonn was hastily brokered by German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel in an attempt to take advantage of the Sarajevo cease-fire and explore areas where Russia and the major Western countries could cooperate in bringing peace to Bosnia.

In a formal statement issued after the meeting, the diplomats unanimously backed a European Union plan that would effectively divide Bosnia into Serbian, Croatian and Muslim regions as the basis for a diplomatic settlement and agreed that the Muslims need “qualitative” improvements to the region proposed for them.

All sides in the conflict have given at least grudging approval to that formula, but the negotiations have broken down over the changes demanded by the Muslims.

Times staff writers Tyler Marshall in Brussels and Doyle McManus and Stanley Meisler in Washington contributed to this report.