Clinton Pledges Air Support in Bosnia : Balkans: U.N. troops scheduled to enter a besieged Muslim enclave could count on U.S., the President says. They would act as shield against Serbs.

President Clinton pledged NATO air support Monday for 800 Ukrainian peacekeeping troops that the United Nations is preparing to deploy in the besieged Muslim enclave of Gorazde in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The President’s remarks, made in Cleveland, where he attended opening day of the American League baseball season, came as Lt. Gen. Michael Rose, U.N. commander in Bosnia, scheduled a visit to Gorazde on Wednesday to pave the way for the arrival of the Ukrainians, whose primary mission would be to act as a shield against attacks by Bosnian Serbs.

Rose will try to persuade the Serbs to let the peacekeeping troops cross their lines without interference.

“We’re looking at what our options are there,” Clinton said. “But it really depends, in part, on what the U.N. mission wants to do there. We are committed to providing air support to troops if they go in.”

The authority for air support stems from Security Council resolutions calling on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to protect U.N. peacekeepers.

Despite Bosnian news reports of a massive Serbian offensive against Gorazde, American and U.N. officials said they doubt the fall of the largely Muslim town of 65,000 is imminent. And a U.N. official reported that the shelling of Gorazde had subsided in the last 24 hours.

A ham radio operator in Gorazde, however, insisted that some of the front lines southeast of the town were “literally in flames”; neither U.N. nor U.S. officials provided any evidence to confirm the ham radio operator’s claims. But fighting in the area has been heavy, and the shelling reportedly has been intense.

State Department spokesman Mike McCurry said the Clinton Administration will consider using air power to stop the Serbs’ shelling of civilian areas in Gorazde, just as NATO stopped the shelling of Sarajevo in February.

But the United States hopes to avoid any situation in which its air power would have the effect of supporting Bosnian government forces on the ground, in Gorazde or elsewhere, he said.

“We are not going to enter this war on behalf of one of the belligerents,” he said. “Our use of air power is designed to accomplish very select objectives . . . that are designed ultimately to advance the peace process, not to further the position of one of the belligerents engaged in battle on the ground.”

The comments by Clinton and McCurry were not viewed as inconsistent with the assertion by Secretary of Defense William J. Perry on Sunday that the United States would not use force to save Gorazde from falling to the Serbs.

Asked whether the Administration is worried that intervening in Gorazde might encourage the Bosnian government to mount offensives elsewhere in the mistaken belief that it has new Western support against the Serbs, McCurry indicated that the Administration has warned against such attacks.

“We’re in very close contact with the Bosnian government,” he said. “I think they know the type of diplomacy that we are pursuing at the moment. But I think we do need to be conscious that those steps we take are designed to encourage the peace process.”

The four U.N. military observers now in Gorazde reportedly have spotted some Muslim military equipment within the town. The presence of such equipment, like the Serbian shelling, would violate year-old Security Council resolutions declaring Gorazde a U.N.-protected safe area.

Under U.N.-set conditions, the Muslims were required to withdraw all troops and military equipment from the safe areas, while the Serbs were ordered to stop their shelling.