Bosnian Serbs Offer Truce Talks

Bosnian Serbs proposed talks on a broad truce with the Muslim-led government Wednesday after stopping the U.N. commander from going to the embattled Gorazde enclave.

U.N. officials said they hoped to begin negotiations today at Sarajevo’s airport on a cease-fire covering all of the former Yugoslav republic. There was no immediate comment from government leaders on the proposed talks.

Serbian troops and the government army have mostly observed a truce around Sarajevo since Feb. 10, but fighting has raged between them elsewhere.

A separate cease-fire between Bosnia’s Croats and Muslims, whose leaders are forming a federation, has quieted central and southwestern Bosnia-Herzegovina.

British Lt. Gen. Michael Rose, the U.N. commander for Bosnia, had wanted to personally assess reports that Gorazde was about to fall to the Serbs after a nine-day offensive.

The mayor of Gorazde had pleaded for Rose to come, just as Rose’s predecessor, French Gen. Philippe Morillon, went to the enclave of Srebrenica during fighting a year ago. Muslims believe Morillon’s trip saved Srebrenica.

Serbian authorities blocked Rose from getting beyond Pale, the Bosnian Serb headquarters just outside Sarajevo.

They did, however, allow three U.N. military observers and eight of Rose’s liaison officers to go on to supplement four military observers already in the enclave about 30 miles southeast of Sarajevo.