Release of U.N. Troops in Bosnia Appears Likely

With all other diplomatic efforts in the crisis in Bosnia-Herzegovina near collapse, one cause for optimism emerged Monday with the prospective release of all remaining United Nations peacekeeper-hostages.

Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic said in Belgrade that he had persuaded Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic to free more than 250 peacekeepers whom the Bosnian Serbs captured in retaliation for NATO air strikes last month.

Karadzic, concluding more than six hours of negotiations with Milosevic’s representative and two senior Greek officials, stopped short of confirming the release.

But the Greek officials, dispatched to use their influence with the defiant Bosnian Serb leader, indicated that there were “quite positive signs.”

Standing in cold, damp air on the front steps of the presidency building in this Bosnian Serb stronghold, Karadzic said he will work out the details of the hostage release today with Milosevic.

It was expected that the U.N. soldiers and military observers will be gathered from the scattered installations where they have been held and transported by bus to Belgrade, the Serbian and Yugoslav capital.

In other developments in the Balkans:

* Talks in Belgrade all but collapsed between Robert Frasure, a special U.S. envoy, and Milosevic. Some Western diplomats accuse the cagey Serbian leader of using the hostage crisis to win concessions in negotiations over his diplomatic recognition of Bosnia.

* Croatia assured the United Nations that it was not launching an offensive against breakaway Croatian Serbs in the Krajina. Krajina Serbs threatened Sunday to fire rockets at Croatian cities after Croatian government soldiers and Bosnian Croats shelled at least two villages in the Krajina. U.N. officials said tensions in the area had eased.

* U.N. Bosnia commander Gen. Rupert Smith has proposed to post U.N. peacekeepers along a mountainous road into Sarajevo to ensure safe passage of humanitarian aid into the besieged Bosnian capital. The plan, which must be approved by U.N. officials in Zagreb, the Croatian capital, is controversial because U.N. peacekeepers guarding the route would be prepared for military confrontation with Bosnian Serbs.

* U.S. officials said NATO authorities had picked up signals from a radio beacon carried by the pilot of the U.S. F-16 shot down Friday. U.S. Air Force pilots routinely carry three such beacons--one in their parachute rigging and two backups attached to their survival vests. The beacon broadcasts signals in a preset pattern. The Pentagon is uncertain whether the pilot parachuted into the hands of the Bosnian Serbs or died in the crash.

Free at Last?

An initial group of 121 captive U.N. peacekeepers was released Friday, but Monday’s announcement, made by Milosevic’s office, indicated that all of the remaining hostages would be freed, potentially defusing a crisis that threatened to drag the United States into an escalating Balkans war.

Greece’s foreign minister, Karolos Papoulias, and Defense Minister Yerasimos Arsenis traveled by helicopter from Belgrade to the border with Bosnia and were then driven to the presidency office in Pale.

Milosevic’s state security chief, Jovica Stanisic, sped to the meeting in a caravan of police cars and escorted by heavily armed special forces security agents in red berets.

They conferred with Karadzic until close to midnight, finally emerging to address scores of reporters who had waited most of the day for a widely anticipated hostage release. A police bus, identical to the ones used for the first hostage liberation, waited in the parking lot.

But logistics seemed to be holding up the actual transportation of the hostages.

Arsenis said the deal will be made final today.

Karadzic, standing in between the two Greek officials, made an unusual admission in conceding his government’s need for help.

“We informed our Greek friends that we are ready for any political, any peaceful outcome [or] solution,” Karadzic said, “and that the crisis is too deep and too deteriorated so that we need help of every right-minded government to help us get out of this crisis.”

He reiterated his longstanding demand that the West promise not to launch more air strikes. But when asked if he had received any such pledge, he said: “We got guarantees about friendship.”

The Greeks have influence with the Serbs because of their shared Orthodox religion and their common historical enmity with Turkey. Greece at the same time is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization--as is Turkey.

Diplomatic Dead End

Despite the seeming progress represented by the anticipated release of more U.N. peacekeepers, Monday was a glum day for diplomatic efforts to find a long-term solution to the Bosnian crisis.

Western diplomats in Belgrade, who just days ago were predicting a breakthrough in talks with Milosevic, described the negotiations as a failure and said Frasure was expected to leave Belgrade empty-handed. They said Milosevic has taken advantage of his leverage in the hostage crisis to harden his position in talks with Frasure on lifting U.N. sanctions against Serbia.

Milosevic reportedly is once again demanding that the sanctions be lifted permanently in exchange for recognizing Bosnia, while the United States and its European allies want the flexibility to reinstate sanctions should Milosevic renege.

The diplomatic setbacks Monday also extended to the United Nations, which was very publicly excluded from the flurry of activity leading up to the expected release of hostages.

Just hours before the Greek foreign and defense ministers were paraded into Pale for talks with Bosnian Serb leaders, Chinmaya Garakhan, senior political adviser to U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, was snubbed in efforts to meet with the same leaders.

“The Bosnian Serbs are just continuing to make life difficult for us in every way possible,” said a frustrated U.N. official in Sarajevo.

Calmer Krajina

A senior U.N. military official said the weekend fighting in the Krajina was not unlike previous military forays by Croat forces into the breakaway region. But Maj. William Taylor said the rocket fire was the first since the massive Croatian offensive in rebel-held western Slavonia on May 1, leading Krajina Serbs to fear another Croatian blitzkrieg was under way.

“That kind of exchange occurs on a regular basis and there is not a panic,” Taylor said. “But they didn’t know how far these guys were going to go. . . . “

Fred Eckhard, spokesman for U.N. special envoy Yasushi Akashi, said the diplomat spoke by telephone with Milan Martic, self-proclaimed president of the breakaway region, to calm him.

U.N. officials described the fighting Sunday as a “communications battle,” since it centered on the main supply road from Bosnian Serb territory into Knin, the self-styled capital of the breakaway Croatian region. Officials said Croat forces appeared to be trying to sever the supply line rather than reignite a full-scale war with the Krajina Serbs.

Sarajevo Woes

With the airlift down for more than two months and land routes blocked for two weeks, the issue of getting food, medical supplies and other humanitarian relief into the Bosnian capital is at the forefront again.

A spokesman in Zagreb for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said there is enough food in Sarajevo to supply hospitals and public kitchens for about one week. Most residents have food stocked in their homes, but spokesman Mans Nyberg said food shortages will become critical for the city’s poorest residents in about two weeks if convoys continue to be blocked.

With that situation in mind, and possible future threats to land convoys after the current crisis passes, U.N. military officials in Sarajevo drafted the plan to convert the road over Mt. Igman into a protected supply route. The treacherous mountain is controlled by Bosnian government forces but is within easy range of Bosnian Serb artillery.

The proposal is considered very sensitive, however, because it would require U.N. action without Bosnian Serb consent at a time when relations between the United Nations and the rebels are strained.

U.N. officials said the plan was too delicate to discuss until tensions in the region subside.

But said Bosnian Vice President Ejup Ganic: “The key issue here is: Do they want to use their mandate or not? Delivering humanitarian aid is supposed to be their job.”

The Bosnian government, which has used the Mt. Igman route to transport military and other supplies, has agreed to hand the road over but would retain the right to use it at night.

The U.S. Military

In Washington, the Clinton Administration began laying the groundwork to provide equipment and intelligence to the newly created French and British rapid-response force, but officials said the pipeline probably would not be ready for several more days.

Authorities said the Pentagon had established a high-level working group to coordinate logistic requirements with commanders of the rapid deployment force, and soon would set up a unit in Naples, headquarters of NATO’s southern command, to handle intelligence issues.

Meanwhile, officials said the U.S. Army command in Europe will soon begin moving about 3,500 troops and attack and transport helicopters from American bases in Germany to Brindisi air base in Italy, across the Adriatic Sea from Bosnia.

The intelligence unit in Naples, modeled after a system that the United States used to furnish allied troops with intelligence during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, would cull raw data--to be sent to the allies--from spy satellites, message interceptions and unmanned aircraft.

Pentagon officials also said Monday that, in view of the downing of the F-16 on Friday, the Administration would press the United States’ NATO allies to alter the rules of engagement for jets flying over Bosnia to allow them to fire at Serb missile batteries sooner.

Officials said allied authorities already have changed the rules for fighter jets enforcing the “no-fly” zone over the country to require that F-16 be accompanied by missile-firing F-4G Wild Weasels and by F-111 electronics-jamming planes.

Wilkinson reported from Pale and Murphy from Zagreb. Times staff writers Edwin Chen, Stanley Meisler and Art Pine in Washington contributed to this report, as did Times special correspondent Samantha Power in Sarajevo.