New Serb Peace Bid Seen as Ploy, but Few Dismiss It Outright : Balkans: Bosnian rebel leader may be trying to soften international resolve with invitation to Jimmy Carter.

A new Bosnian Serb peace offer that would require the mediation of former President Jimmy Carter was widely viewed Thursday as a calculated ploy to further undermine the international community’s teetering resolve in Bosnia.

But after nearly three years of civil war and countless failed peace efforts, few were willing to dismiss the new initiative outright for fear of missing an opportunity to end the conflict, the bloodiest in Europe since World War II.

“I don’t think anybody will object to any steps that can help end the killing, improve the humanitarian condition and ease tensions that exist between the Bosnian Muslims and the Bosnian Serbs,” State Department spokesman Mike McCurry said.

For officials here and in Bosnia-Herzegovina, who favor an internationally approved peace plan that would divide the country roughly in half, the new offer fell far short of a breakthrough in the tense stalemate between the two warring sides.

Less than 12 hours after Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic disclosed his new proposal, a U.N. helicopter near Sarajevo was hit by small arms and antiaircraft fire while en route to pick up the U.N. commander in Bosnia, Lt. Gen. Michael Rose, a U.N. spokesman said.

It was not clear who was responsible for the attack, but speculation centered on Bosnian Serb troops, who were also reported to have blocked food and other humanitarian aid deliveries throughout Bosnia despite pledges by Karadzic to end such harassment.

“The situation is still quite bleak,” said Michael C. Williams, spokesman for Yasushi Akashi, the U.N. special envoy in the former Yugoslavia.

U.N. officials said they were taken by surprise by the late-night proposal from Karadzic, which was disclosed in a telephone interview with CNN shortly before midnight Wednesday in Bosnia. Karadzic talked with CNN after speaking by telephone to Carter in Plains, Ga., from Pale, the self-proclaimed Bosnian Serb capital near Sarajevo. Earlier, Karadzic sent two Los Angeles-area Serbian Americans to meet with the former President and lay the groundwork, diplomatic sources said.

A U.N. spokesman said the telephone conversations with Karadzic violated a U.N. Security Council resolution that bans all commercial activity--including the use of international telecommunication links--with the Bosnian Serbs without approval from the U.N. Protection Force.

“The resolution was clearly meant to punish the Bosnian Serbs by restricting commercial ties,” spokesman Paul Risley said. “A telephone call with Pale breaks international sanctions.”

Karadzic said in the CNN interview that he is willing to impose a cease-fire in the Sarajevo area, free detained U.N. troops, allow the movement of humanitarian relief, release teen-age Muslim prisoners of war, reopen Sarajevo airport and guarantee human rights. In return, he wants Carter to fly to Bosnia to begin negotiations for a permanent settlement, possibly as early as this weekend.

U.N. officials were clearly miffed by the Bosnian Serbs’ end run, particularly since Akashi had met with Karadzic earlier Wednesday and the Bosnian Serb leader had made no mention of a new peace initiative. Williams said Karadzic actually refused in the meeting to accept several demands by Akashi that later turned up in Karadzic’s offer to Carter.

“The six points of this peace plan do not represent peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina,” Williams said. “This is simply taking us back where we were two months ago, which was not so grand then.”

U.N. officials and Western diplomats said they feared Karadzic was attempting to drive a wedge into the peace plan already approved by the Muslim-led Bosnian government and neighboring Serbia. The plan, which would give the Bosnian Serbs 49% of Bosnian territory, was negotiated by the so-called Contact Group, consisting of the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Russia.

Karadzic has rejected that plan, but the Contact Group has refused to back away from it. The group, which met in Zagreb on Thursday, reiterated its support for the plan and said no further negotiations with the Bosnian Serbs will be possible until they accept it.

“Once we have an accepted peace plan, then there is a basis for further talks, because there are other issues to be resolved,” said Michael Steiner, the German ambassador to the Contact Group. “But we need to have this common basis first.”

Bosnian Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic said Contact Group members assured him that they would not retreat from the plan, even with the new Karadzic proposal and Carter’s likely involvement. Silajdzic said Carter’s participation would constitute a “destruction” of the peace process if it focused on anything but gaining Bosnian Serb approval of the existing peace plan.

“Those initiatives that are not intended to lead to the acceptance of the peace plan are destructions,” Silajdzic said. “We have the Contact Group plan that we worked on for months. . . . We accepted the peace plan, and all we want is for the other side to accept that plan.”

U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said in New York that Carter had assured him that his involvement would be “fully synchronized” with the work of the Contact Group, according to a spokesman. But Steiner said Carter had not been in touch with the group before or after his discussions with Karadzic and his Los Angeles emissaries.

Western diplomats here were skeptical that such assurances could be honored anyway, saying Karadzic would not have solicited Carter’s involvement simply to talk about a peace plan that he had already rejected. Col. Andrew Duncan of the Institute for Strategic Studies in London said there is a danger that separate talks by Carter, who would have no official standing, could do more harm than good.

“It creates all sorts of chances for misunderstandings,” Duncan said. “There are already enough groups and people involved.”

NATO Secretary General Willy Claes also expressed puzzlement over Carter’s role.

“I don’t see why it is necessary to ask for a former President of the United States to come in in order to get a cease-fire,” Claes said in Brussels. “I do not believe that if there is a willingness (by the Bosnian Serbs) for a cease-fire there is a need for an intermediary.”

By drawing Carter into the fray, Karadzic seems bent on circumventing the route to peace set out by the international community in the partition plan, Western diplomats in Zagreb said. His ultimate goal may be to come up with an alternative plan more favorable to the Bosnian Serbs that would carry Carter’s name and ultimately erode support for the Contact Group plan--perhaps splitting the group itself.

“It is another master stroke,” said one Western official in Zagreb. “He has made fools out of us so many times already.”

But Clinton Administration officials, who on Thursday offered Carter an Air Force jet and support staff if he travels to Bosnia, said that Karadzic may be looking for a way to end the conflict without appearing to knuckle under to international pressure.

By visiting the Bosnian Serb leader in his self-proclaimed capital of Pale, Carter would give him a measure of the respect and international legitimacy that Karadzic seeks, possibly allowing him to claim victory while accepting perms he previously rejected, the officials said.

“It’s impossible to fully understand Karadzic’s motives, but I would suggest that it does have something to do with the fact that he is facing pressure and he is facing the prospect of a war that will continue to drain resources from the Bosnian Serb community in Bosnia and continue to result in the deaths of his fellow citizens,” McCurry said.

One Western diplomat in Zagreb said the U.S. view in part amounts to wishful thinking. “Everyone is very skeptical, but we’re at the point where you have to say, ‘Heck, go with whatever works,’ ” the diplomat said.

Times staff writers Jack Nelson, Norman Kempster and Stanley Meisler in Washington, and Tyler Marshall in Brussels contributed to this report.