Carter Weighs Bosnia Trip at Request of Serb Warlord : Balkans: Former President will mediate if Radovan Karadzic keeps promises to ease tensions.

Former President Jimmy Carter said Wednesday that he will visit Bosnia-Herzegovina at the invitation of Bosnian Serb warlord Radovan Karadzic to try to mediate an end to the bloody Balkan war--provided Karadzic follows through with a six-point plan to ease tensions.

Carter told Cable News Network that, if he makes the trip, he will not “take sides” in the war but will listen to the views of both the Muslim-led Bosnian government and Karadzic’s Serbian insurgents, who have seized more than 70% of the territory of the former Yugoslav republic.

That evenhanded approach contrasts with the official policy of the Clinton Administration, which regards Bosnia’s Serbs as the primary aggressors in the conflict and considers the government and its supporters to be the victims. The Administration has accused the Serbs of a long list of war crimes stemming from their policy of “ethnic cleansing,” a program of murder, torture and intimidation intended to force non-Serbs out of areas under Serbian control.

In a CNN interview, Karadzic said he outlined to Carter a six-point plan intended to ease the crisis. It includes an immediate cease-fire in the Sarajevo area, along with pledges to end the harassment of U.N. relief operations, release detained U.N. troops, free Bosnian government soldiers younger than 19, permit the reopening of Sarajevo’s airport and guarantee human rights in areas under Serbian control.

Carter said that he will accept Karadzic’s invitation if the Serbian forces keep those promises, which he described as “a step in the right direction and an improvement on his position over the past few weeks.”

“Mr. Karadzic assured me that all of the tangible moves would be made immediately and then the world could see for itself that he was indeed going to honor the things that he had committed to do,” Carter said.

In a terse written statement, the White House expressed skepticism that Carter’s intervention would be enough to settle the conflict that has bedeviled the international community for almost three years. But it welcomed Carter’s effort.

“While we are skeptical about the Bosnian Serbs’ intentions, if the steps outlined by Karadzic are implemented, they would help reduce tensions and ease the humanitarian situation in Bosnia,” the White House said. “The next step would be agreement among the parties on a countrywide cease-fire and renewed negotiations on a political settlement.”

The Administration will give Carter up-to-the-minute intelligence information about Karadzic’s compliance with his promises, a senior Administration official said.

“We want to see how things happen on the ground,” the official said. “We will be in a position to inform former President Carter of the implementation of Karadzic’s commitments. Carter wants to see if Karadzic makes good on the promises.”

The official said Carter told Clinton that he will make the trip only if the Bosnian Serbs keep their pledge and “President Clinton thinks that is a very prudent course.”

Karadzic said: “It is a good opportunity to discuss the situation and confirm that now we are just at about the time to do some breakthrough. I do hope we will have President Carter here to visit Serb and Muslim sides very soon.”

The intervention is the third by Carter in less than a year in areas of diplomacy that usually are the exclusive sphere of the White House and the State Department.

In the two previous situations, in North Korea and Haiti, the former President negotiated directly with dictators whom the U.S. government was trying to isolate and exclude from normal diplomatic discourse. Both times, Carter defused potentially serious crises, although critics said he agreed to concessions that the Administration had earlier refused to make.

Following his two earlier diplomatic efforts, Carter returned with words of praise for North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung, who died shortly afterward, and Haiti’s military ruler, Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras. The former President said he had invited Cedras--denounced by Clinton as a tyrant and a murderer--to teach Carter’s Sunday school class at the Plains, Ga., Baptist Church.

Carter operates in a twilight area between private activism and official diplomacy. His status as a former President brings substantial prestige to his activities, sometimes allowing him to make deals that would not be possible otherwise.

Carter said that, if he goes to Bosnia, he will have no official standing.

“I don’t have any portfolio. . . .” he said. “If I should go to Sarajevo . . . it would be representing the Carter Center, not representing the U.S. government. I have not been asked to be an official emissary of the government.”

Carter said he does not plan to negotiate independently but instead will urge Karadzic to accept the peace plan outlined by the United States, Russia, Britain, France and Germany--known as the Contact Group--which would partition the country between the Serbs and a federation of the government and the Bosnian Croats. That plan would give 51% of the territory to the Muslim-Croat federation and 49% to the Serbs, who now hold more than 70%. The plan has already been accepted by the Bosnian government and the Croats.