U.S. Says Talks Remain Best Option in Bosnia : Balkans: Alternatives are intervention or total pullout. Christopher admits Washington has little leverage.

Despite repeated failure to end to the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina through negotiation, Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Defense Secretary William J. Perry said Tuesday that the United States will continue to press for a diplomatic solution because the alternatives--U.S. military intervention and total withdrawal--are much worse.

On the eve of his departure for Europe and what could be an acrimonious meeting of North Atlantic Treaty Organization foreign ministers, Christopher said U.S. policy continues to be based on the Bosnia partition plan that already has been rejected by the Bosnian Serbs.

Christopher said Washington has only three options: military intervention, which could plunge up to 300,000 American troops into bitter warfare; complete disengagement, which would leave the Bosnians to their fate, and “pressing ahead for a diplomatic solution . . . to preserve the territorial integrity of Bosnia.”

Interviewed on Cable News Network, Perry agreed: “We have rejected both walking away and an extensive use of military force, and that means the course we’re pursuing is the best course. It is not forcing an outcome of the war, but it certainly is limiting the violence while we pursue diplomatic ways of ending the war.”

Christopher backed away from reports that the United States is ready to allow the formation of a Greater Serbia, made up of the nation of Serbia plus Serb-held sections of Bosnia and Croatia.

He said that the subject of a Serbian confederation “comes up, and it might be discussed at some time in the future,” although he insisted that the United States is not advocating such an outcome.

Christopher made it clear that Washington disagrees with Britain and France over a U.S. call for the use of NATO air power to blunt a Serbian attack on the Muslim enclave of Bihac in northwest Bosnia. But he vowed that the conflict in the former Yugoslav federation will not be allowed to break up the Atlantic Alliance or cause the United States to distance itself from Europe.

“The crisis in Bosnia is about Bosnia and the former Yugoslavia,” Christopher said. “It is not about NATO or its future. . . . NATO will continue to be the anchor of our participation in Europe.”

Christopher insisted that the United States and its allies have not ruled out the use of NATO warplanes in other parts of Bosnia, despite the rejection by the U.N. command of most proposed air strikes in Bihac.

Nevertheless, Christopher indicated that Washington has very little leverage that it can use to force the Bosnian Serbs to accept the partition plan adopted by the international Contact Group composed of the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Russia. That plan would give about 51% of the country to a Muslim-Croatian federation and 49% to the Serbs, who now hold more than 70% of the territory.

Asked to list the “carrots and sticks” that the United States and its allies can use to persuade the Serbs to accept partition, Christopher was unable to cite a single new inducement or punishment. He said that Washington is counting on Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic to bring pressure on his Bosnian allies to agree to a settlement, and he said that the Muslim-led Bosnian army “has fought well and achieved a stalemate” in parts of the country, despite the situation in Bihac.

“The major carrot for any party would be to end the fighting and to have peace in the region and the economic development that goes with peace,” he said.

Outside experts painted a similarly bleak picture of U.S. options.

“The only option is to try to cut a deal with Milosevic,” said Patrick Glynn, an analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank. The Serbian president, apparently hoping for relief from international sanctions against his country, recently called on the Bosnian Serbs to accept the Contact Group plan.

Glynn said that friction between Milosevic and Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, and growing war-weariness in Serbia, are the only two pressure points available to U.S. policy-makers.

He said the use of NATO air power is not promising because of the danger of Serbian retaliation against British and French troops among U.N. peacekeepers.

“If British and French forces die in the next couple of weeks, there will be a tendency in Britain and France to blame the United States for this,” Glynn said.

U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and his chief lieutenant in the area, Yasushi Akashi, are scheduled to arrive in Sarajevo today to propose a three-month cease-fire throughout Bosnia.

In addition, according to a U.N. official, Boutros-Ghali will propose demilitarization of the Bihac area.

Christopher said that the United States and its allies hope to begin “proximity talks” in which U.S. officials would meet separately with Bosnian government and Serbian officials.

If the two sides agreed, he said, the United States would be prepared to sponsor an international peace conference to search for ways to end the conflict.

But British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd, interviewed by CNN, said that outside forces have very little control over the situation.

“Of course there is dismay and frustration,” he said. “But that’s partly because we have deluded ourselves . . . that from outside, the U.N. or NATO can actually impose peace with justice on a civil war in Bosnia.”

Times staff writer Stanley Meisler contributed to this report.

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What’s At Stake

What may transpire after Serbian forces flush out about 200,000 Muslims still inside the Bihac pocket is still uncertain. Here are a few of the possible scenarios:

1. Serbian forces will create a corridor through Serb-held territory allowing Bosnian Muslims safe passage to Karlovac, Croatia.

2. A rail link between Knin, a town inside Serb-held territory in Croatia, and Banja Luka, a town inside Serb-held territory in Bosnia-Herzegovina, will allow Serbian forces to fortify and consolidate their strength in northwestern Bosnia.

3. Croatia could be pushed into the war by the influx of additional Muslim refugees into the country and the possibility of losing the Serb-held territories within Croatia’s borders.

4. Croatia could relinquish protective rights over a strip of central Bosnia-Herzegovina still under Muslim control in exchange for Serbi-held territories inside Croatia.

Source: Times staff reports