Onus for Bosnia Peace on Muslims, Croats, U.S. Envoy Says

Bosnia’s Muslim-Croat Federation is now the focus of U.S. diplomatic efforts and needs to do much more to speed the peace process, U.S. Balkans special envoy Robert Gelbard said Saturday.

After a successful meeting with Croatian President Franjo Tudjman in Zagreb, Gelbard said a new moderate government in Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Serb Republic meant that it was the Muslim-Croat Federation that was now dragging its feet on implementing peace accords.

“Now that there is a very pro-Dayton, pro-democracy government in Republika Srpska, the focus is much more on the federation, as it should be,” Gelbard said, referring to the 1995 accords reached in Dayton, Ohio, that ended the Bosnian war.

Earlier, he had an acrimonious meeting with the Croat member of Bosnia’s collective presidency, Kresimir Zubak, which Zubak ended after half an hour.

Hina, the Croatian news agency, quoted Zubak as saying that Gelbard had accused Bosnian Croats of aspiring to divide Bosnia, while Gelbard said Zubak had been unwilling to listen to him.

“Mr. Zubak didn’t want to talk about some of the things that he and his colleagues need to do. He wanted to criticize the other side. . . . Their computers are only set on transmit and not on receive,” Gelbard said.

Muslims and Croats formed the federation in 1994 after fighting a 10-month war for territory. Gelbard said both sides now need to do more to make the federation work.

In contrast, Gelbard said that he had successful talks with Tudjman and Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granic and that they had agreed on several issues, including refugee returns, the situation in Serbia’s Kosovo region and U.S.-Croat relations.

Croatia has been under constant pressure from the United States and Europe to speed the return of tens of thousands of refugees and displaced people who fled their homes during the wars in the former Yugoslav federation.

Granic told reporters that Croatia would announce Monday a new program for individual refugee returns and set up a council for cooperation with Bosnia.

He said that Croatia and the Serb Republic were holding talks on boosting economic relations and speeding the return of refugees.