After Debate, Bosnia Serbs Coy on Peace Plan Decision : Balkans: Despite secrecy, leaders reportedly give conditional OK. It may not be enough for major powers.

Bosnian Serb leaders ended two days of heated debate Tuesday, refusing to disclose their decision on a “last-chance” international peace plan that would partition war-ravaged Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Bosnian Serb officials, however, reportedly voted to give conditional approval to the accord--an answer previously described as a rejection by the plan’s architects: the United States, Russia, Britain, Germany and France.

The five nations, acting in concert to try to end the two-year conflict that has claimed an estimated 200,000 lives, had set a Tuesday deadline for the warring parties to give a decisive “yes” or “no” to the peace plan, devising a package of punishments and rewards for them depending on their response.

In Washington, National Security Adviser Anthony Lake warned the Bosnian Serbs that they will face “consequences” if they reject the plan or attach unacceptable conditions to it. The plan would give the federation of Muslims and Croats 51% of Bosnia, leaving the rest to the Bosnian Serbs, who have seized control of 70% of the country.

But sources said the Bosnian Serbs, in a virtual rejection of the latest international mediation effort, now want the peace accord to include constitutional guarantees to allow their self-proclaimed Serbian state to join what they term Greater Serbia instead of remaining in a Bosnian union with Muslims and Croats, who earlier endorsed the peace plan.

The Bosnian Serbs also were said to be seeking revision Tuesday of territorial maps to include the division of Sarajevo and access to the Adriatic Sea for their landlocked holdings.

They reportedly said that if they sign the agreement, the international community must immediately lift its sanctions on their chief allies in the rump Yugoslavia, now made up of the former Yugoslav republics of Serbia and Montenegro. Twenty-six months of punitive measures, combined with its war-making efforts, have wreaked havoc on Serbia’s economy.

As he arrived in his forces’ mountain stronghold of Pale, just east of Sarajevo, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic indicated that the Bosnian Serbs are likely to endorse the international peace accord--with conditions. “We have reached no decision, but I hope we can accept it in some way,” he said.

Emerging Tuesday from the Pale meetings with a sealed envelope, Bosnian Serb Information Minister Miroslav Toholj observed, “The Bosnian Serb parliament yesterday and today has adopted a decision, which is in this envelope and which will be submitted” to the five big powers seeking to mediate the Bosnian war; they are due to meet with leaders of Bosnia’s warring factions in Geneva today.

Aleksa Buha, the Bosnian Serbs’ foreign minister, said, “Everything will be known in Geneva in two days.”

Although their sessions were closed and their final results were not given, the Bosnian Serbs engaged in fierce debate and Monday night had voted to reject the peace accord, arguing that the international community was forcing it upon them and that it took away too much from them, Belgrade’s Studio B radio reported.

Karadzic also made no attempt to sell the plan, warning that “Bosnian Serbs must be prepared for an all-out war, shooting down the most (NATO) planes possible,” if the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, as some have threatened it might, enters the Balkan fray more deeply.

Noting that the rejection of the peace plan might prompt the United States and other nations to lift a U.N.-imposed arms embargo on the former Yugoslav republics, a restriction that critics have said has especially hampered the Muslim-led Bosnian government, Karadzic told the Bosnian Serbs: “We are threatened with the continuation of the war in far more difficult circumstances for us in which Muslims would be better-armed. There will be a battle for life and death.”

He said the plan would require Bosnian Serbs to hand over 13 towns and would leave 400,000 Bosnian Serbs in Muslim government-held territory.

Despite all their doubts, the Bosnian Serbs faced intense pressure to accept the peace accord. Even their Serbian allies--eager to have international sanctions against them lifted--had reportedly lobbied hard, in private, for them to accept the plan.

The international community has warned that if the leaders fail to endorse the plan, the Bosnian Serbs and their Serbian allies can expect even more punitive measures from the international community, such as more stringent economic sanctions, the extending of exclusion zones around six Muslim enclaves in Bosnia and even possibly greater military involvement by outside forces.

In Washington, at a lunch with reporters, Lake said the United States has no objections to parties in the Bosnian conflict reopening negotiations over details of a settlement, including the map dividing the country among the ethnic communities. But he emphasized that all factions must agree to do so.

He said Washington does not regard the plan put forward by five powers to be a “take-it-or-leave-it” proposition but noted, “If the Bosnian Serbs’ response is a ‘no’ or a response that is tantamount to a ‘no,’ the Bosnian Serbs should understand there will be consequences of such a decision.”

Although he indicated that the Clinton Administration would be flexible on details of a peace accord, he said the U.S. government will not go along with attempts to annex Serb-controlled parts of Bosnia to Serbia. “We did not enter into this process to preside over the creation of a Greater Serbia,” he said.

Meantime, in Western Europe, where governments have once again relied chiefly on tough rhetoric to cajole both sides into accepting the agreement, the inconclusive Bosnian Serb response triggered a sudden silence.

“We don’t react to rumors and leaks,” a British Foreign Office spokesman said Tuesday night. “We will expect them to make their intentions known (in Geneva) tomorrow or Thursday, then we will have something to say.”

Similar “wait-and-see” responses came from Paris and Moscow. Britain and France are two of the largest contributors to the U.N. peacekeeping force in Bosnia.

The absence of substantive comment contrasted sharply with earlier statements.

Just Monday, the 12 European Union foreign ministers issued a statement in Brussels declaring the new plan should be accepted “without any ifs or buts . . . “

“The $64,000 question is whether the political will is there to go forward with these Draconian measures if the Serbs say no,” an official at NATO headquarters in Brussels said. “We’ll have to wait to see how much muscle there is behind it all, to what degree the international community is ready to force the Serbs to comply.”

If Russia and the Western allies decide to follow through with threats to apply new pressure on Bosnian Serbs, NATO would be directly involved, initially enforcing the present “no-fly” zones and possibly an expanded set of U.N.-designated exclusion zones where any Bosnian Serb heavy weapons found would be subject to air strikes.

NAT0 forces also could be used directly against the Bosnian Serbs in an attempt to bomb them to the peace table and to help cover a withdrawal of U.N. peacekeeping forces, if that is considered necessary.

Times staff writers Norman Kempster in Washington and Tyler Marshall in Brussels contributed to this report.