Arms Smuggling Claim Being Probed

The NATO-led peace force in Bosnia-Herzegovina is investigating reports that Bosnia’s government is smuggling in heavy artillery, but neither it nor the United States has evidence of it, the U.S. State Department said. Spokesman Nicholas Burns was commenting in Washington on a New York Times report that the Muslim-led government in Sarajevo had smuggled in 40 155-millimeter howitzers through the Adriatic port of Ploce, Croatia, in August, with assistance from Turkey and Malaysia. The shipment of undeclared heavy weapons into Bosnia by any of the ethnic factions--Muslims, Serbs or Croats--would be a violation of the Dayton peace accord.