EU Ready to Send Monitors to Police Cutoff of Serb Aid

The European Union said Saturday that it is ready to send 135 monitors to Yugoslavia’s border with Bosnia-Herzegovina to check on Belgrade’s promise that no war supplies reach Bosnian Serbs.

The foreign ministers of the 12 EU nations, at an informal meeting on this Baltic Sea island, endorsed a lifting of sanctions against Serbia if Belgrade acts decisively to cut supply lines to Bosnian Serb troops, officials said.

Lord Owen, the EU’s Bosnia mediator, told the ministers that at least 135 monitors would be required to determine whether Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic is honoring his pledge. Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark offered 60 monitors, officials said. The operation would also involve 150 Yugoslav monitors.

The officials said the EU foresees a scenario under which monitors will be quickly deployed to see if the Yugoslav-Bosnian border remains closed.

If it does, the United States, Russia, France, Germany and Britain will draft a U.N. resolution providing for a gradual lifting of sanctions against Belgrade, which has urged Bosnian Serbs to accept an international peace plan for Bosnia.

The foreign ministers also agreed there should be no lifting of the arms embargo against the Muslim-led government in Sarajevo, a step advocated by the United States.