All Bosnia POWs to Be Freed, Carter Says : Balkans: Release of prisoners is first step in agreement that former President brokered. He warns pact is fragile.

By NORMAN KEMPSTER

Dec. 22, 1994 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

WASHINGTON —

Former President Jimmy Carter, returning to the United States from his free-lance attempt to mediate an end to the ethnic conflict in Bosnia, said Wednesday that the warring factions have agreed to release all prisoners of war as a first step toward a negotiated peace.

“Both sides agreed to let the International Red Cross come in, inspect the prisons, inspect all the prison camps and inventory the prisoners. And it calls for an immediate release, total release of all prisoners of war by both sides,” Carter said at the Atlanta airport.

At the same time, the former President cautioned that the agreement he brokered between the Muslim-led government and the Bosnian Serb insurgents is fragile, and “the whole thing can very easily come apart.” The pact calls for a cease-fire starting Friday, followed by negotiations on a permanent peace and partition of the country between the factions.

The Clinton Administration gave cautious approval to the deal Wednesday. Officials said that if the agreement stops the fighting, it is welcome even if it undermines the partition plan advanced in July by the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Russia, known collectively as the Contact Group.

State Department spokesman Mike McCurry said Wednesday that the United States believes the Contact Group plan, which would award 51% of the territory to a Muslim-Croat federation and 49% to the Serbs, must be considered the “basis for a settlement.”

But other officials conceded that the Serbs, who now hold more than 70% of the country, will enter the talks from a position of strength, making it unlikely that they would agree to give up as much territory as the Contact Group plan requires.

McCurry said it is unlikely that the Bosnian government would agree to a settlement that leaves it with less territory than the Contact Group proposed. But if the Serbs, who have repeatedly rejected the Contact Group plan, hold firm, the government will be faced with a choice of continuing a war it has been losing or agree to a division that favors the Serbs.

In July, the Contact Group advanced its proposal as a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. At that time, the five powers threatened sanctions--including, as a last resort, lifting the arms embargo against the government--if any of the parties rejected the plan.

The Bosnian government, Bosnian Croats and the governments of Croatia and Serbia all accepted. But the Bosnian Serbs rejected it.

Earlier this month, the Contact Group reasserted the plan but without the threat of sanctions. And the reaction of the United States and its allies to the deal brokered by Carter seems to make clear that the Serbs are free to negotiate without paying much attention to the Contact Group plan.

In Bosnia, weather seemed to reinforce Carter’s peace efforts as deep snow blanketed the country, immobilizing the Serbs’ heavy weapons and blocking many roads. The fighting slackened, raising hopes that the cease-fire will take effect on schedule Friday.

The top U.N. official in the former Yugoslavia, Yasushi Akashi, is scheduled to follow in Carter’s footsteps today by visiting Sarajevo and then going to the Bosnian Serb headquarters in the nearby village of Pale.

Akashi hopes to arrange a meeting at Sarajevo airport Friday to begin what officials hope will be a truce of four months or longer.