Rebel Serbs Agree to Concessions to Head Off Spread of War in Bosnia

Bosnian Serbs agreed Tuesday to a cease-fire and the posting of U.N. observers around the town of Brcko, where negotiators are trying to head off a new flare-up in the civil war.

They also agreed to let U.N. peacekeepers enter the Muslim enclave of Gorazde, another flash point in the Balkan conflict.

Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic said after meeting top U.N. official Yasushi Akashi that his troops will observe a truce in the strategic Brcko area in northern Bosnia even if Muslim-led Bosnian government forces do not.

“The United Nations will be deploying more military liaison officers in the area of Brcko, and we will be establishing more observation posts,” Akashi told reporters after the meeting in Pale.

Muslims and Serbs have accused each other of a buildup of forces around the Bosnian Serb-held river valley town. Brcko lies in a narrow strip that links Serb-held territories in Bosnia and Croatia to Serbia itself.

The 70% of Bosnian territory Serbs now control resembles a horseshoe, and at one point near Brcko it is only three miles wide. Muslim forces are to the south, and Croatia lies to the north.

France has urged the United Nations to give Brcko the same protective shield as six embattled Muslim-held parts of Bosnia that the world body has declared safe areas.

Akashi and Karadzic also discussed the enclave of Gorazde, in eastern Bosnia, and deteriorating relations between the Serbs and U.N. peacekeepers.

Akashi said the Serbs agreed to let a convoy of 168 British troops heading for Gorazde proceed.

The Serbs protested an incident last Friday when U.N. tanks lobbed 72 shells at Serbian positions near the northern town of Tuzla, which the Serbs say killed nine civilians. The United Nations says the peacekeeping troops were responding to Serbian attacks.