Deal with Milosevic to Recognize Bosnia Stalls Over Sanctions Issue

A senior U.S. envoy left here empty-handed Tuesday after failing to get Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic to recognize Bosnia-Herzegovina, despite a week of intensive talks.

Discussions between the Serbian president and Robert Frasure, the U.S. representative from the five-nation Contact Group, which is mediating among Bosnia’s warring parties, hit a dead end when Milosevic again insisted on a full removal of economic sanctions in exchange for recognition of Bosnia’s frontiers.

The United States and other mediators are offering only a 200-day suspension of sanctions that were imposed on Belgrade three years ago to punish the Milosevic regime for fomenting the war in Bosnia.

In Washington, Secretary of State Warren Christopher ordered Frasure to return to the United States after it became clear that Milosevic would not accept the Contact Group proposal. State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said Frasure’s talks with Milosevic made progress, although he refused to be specific.

But he said the negotiations “foundered on one point--that Serbia is insisting on a lifting of the sanctions, and the United States [and the] Contact Group position was and is that there can be a suspension of sanctions, but not a lift.”

Burns said the original proposal “is still on the table.”

He said Christopher discussed the issue by telephone with British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd on Tuesday and will contact the foreign ministers of other countries later this week to try to plot future moves.

Despite the setback, a senior diplomat in the Serbian and Yugoslav capital made clear that negotiators had made progress because Milosevic had agreed to recognize Bosnia. It was just a question of the reward.

The Contact Group, made up of the United States, France, Germany, Russia and Britain, offered to suspend sanctions against Belgrade for 200 days in return for its recognition of Bosnia. The deal would not suspend the fuel embargo nor the ban on international credits and military equipment.

Russia said Alexander Zotov, President Boris N. Yeltsin’s Contact Group negotiator, would fly to Belgrade today to try to resolve disputes that have stalled the deal. U.S. officials said Zotov has not informed Washington what he will tell Belgrade.

The Serbian president is wary of taking the major and controversial step of acknowledging Bosnia without securing permanent sanctions relief. He is unprepared to risk upsetting members of his political and military elite by recognizing Bosnia in exchange for what he sees as a small reward.

Bosnian Serb leaders Tuesday welcomed Milosevic’s refusal to recognize Bosnia, repeating that such a move would be disastrous for Serbs. Diplomats had hoped that recognition would drive a wedge between Milosevic and his hard-line brethren in Bosnia, led by Radovan Karadzic.

But the breakdown in talks shifted the burden onto Milosevic, who was once seen by the West as the person most responsible for the violent disintegration of the former Yugoslav federation but who recently has been praised for his efforts to end the war in Bosnia. “It’s up to Milosevic to prove that he is not in the same doghouse as Karadzic,” the Western diplomat said.

As diplomacy faltered Tuesday, mortars and snipers continued to claim victims in Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital. In a mortar attack, one civilian was killed and five were wounded, including two children in an orphanage playground.

Times staff writer Norman Kempster in Washington contributed to this report.