U.S. Envoy Warns of Slow Progress on Bosnian Truce

Inching along a tortuous path toward peace, a U.S. envoy ended inconclusive talks with the Bosnian government Saturday and went to Belgrade to try his luck with the Serbs.

Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke traveled to the Yugoslav federation capital to meet with President Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia, the Balkans’ main powerbroker. Holbrooke is negotiating a cease-fire to bolster a U.S. peace plan.

“The two sides may both want a cease-fire, but they have very different ideas of what it means,” Holbrooke said in Belgrade. “I caution people not to expect any direct announcements on that in the immediate future.”

“This is a step-by-step process. It’s very slow. It’s very tough,” he said. “We’re very daunted by the issues that lie ahead.”

Holbrooke is expected to meet today in Croatia with President Franjo Tudjman, then return to Sarajevo on Monday.

In Sarajevo, he left behind unresolved issues over how to implement a truce and a proposed division of Bosnia-Herzegovina, along with a dispute over stalled plans to open a new access route to the city, the Bosnian capital. The Bosnian government also is pressing for free access to Gorazde, the last remaining Muslim enclave in eastern Bosnia.

Hopes of further easing the siege of Sarajevo were dashed Saturday when the planned opening of a main route out of the city was called off.

The Muslim-led but secular government objected to U.N. plans to use a rough front-line road instead of a larger road as part of a main route to Kiseljak, a town 20 miles northwest of the capital held by the government’s Bosnian Croat allies.

U.N. officials promised to secure the road for civilians, but Bosnian Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic called it “a notorious street” open to easy ambush.

U.N. officials said the larger road, part of a heavily mined and damaged highway, was too dangerous and would take at least three weeks to clear.

Likely to further complicate Holbrooke’s shuttle diplomacy were reports of more fighting around Banja Luka, a Serb-held town 90 miles northwest of Sarajevo, and Konjic, a Bosnian government-held town 25 miles southwest of Sarajevo.