Peace Envoys Forced to Cancel Sarajevo Trip

A day after being rebuffed in Belgrade, U.S. and other peace envoys canceled their trip to Sarajevo on Wednesday because the Bosnian Serb army refused to guarantee the safety of their plane.

“It was not possible to obtain security guarantees from Bosnian Serb military liaison officers this morning,” the United Nations said. Sarajevo airport has been shut since Saturday, when Serb gunners raked a U.S. cargo plane with small-arms fire.

The cancellation was a blow to the five-nation Contact Group’s hopes of persuading a reluctant Bosnian government to extend a battered four-month truce due to expire May 1.

It was unclear when the envoys--from Britain, France, Germany, Russia and the United States--would make another attempt to reach Sarajevo.

The envoys had hoped that, at a meeting in Belgrade on Tuesday, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic would recognize Bosnia’s independence, showing the Sarajevo government that it could gain concessions through negotiation.

But Milosevic rebuffed the Contact Group’s offer to ease crippling trade sanctions imposed in 1992 in exchange for acceptance of the independence of Bosnia and Croatia.

The Contact Group’s offer did not include relaxation of an oil embargo or the unfreezing of Belgrade’s financial assets abroad.

Diplomats in Belgrade said Milosevic believes he can afford to wait for the international community to make further concessions, even though sanctions have reduced his nation’s economy to near ruin.

The envoys’ tour of the Balkans came against a background of deteriorating security in Sarajevo and cease-fire breaches across Bosnia.

At least one mortar shell hit a busy road in downtown Sarajevo on Wednesday, wounding seven people and prompting officials to sound a general alert urging residents to get off the streets.

An Italian journalist was wounded by sniper fire Wednesday while driving near the Sarajevo airport, a U.N. spokesman said. Reporter Maurizio Cucci of Murcia Editions based in Bologna, was hit in the shoulder and taken to a U.N. hospital for treatment.