U.S. Will Offer Plan for Fresh Talks on Bosnia

The Clinton Administration is preparing a proposal for a new set of peace talks on Bosnia-Herzegovina aimed at producing a settlement more acceptable to Muslims of the divided republic than the current U.N.-sponsored plan, officials said Thursday.

The new approach, which is still being worked on by Clinton aides, would give the United States a larger and more direct role than before in negotiating terms for peace in Bosnia, the officials said.

As a result, it also will have the effect of committing the United States to a larger role in enforcing a settlement, some officials said--a commitment that could lead to deploying American troops as peacekeepers in the region.

One approach being discussed by Clinton advisers is to ask the current mediators, former Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance, representing the United Nations, and former British Foreign Secretary Lord Owen, representing the European Community, to open negotiations over the plan they have proposed.

At the same time, the Administration is considering ways to pressure the Bosnian Serbs into accepting an amended plan. The United States and the European Community could, for example, impose a stepped-up international embargo on Serbia.

Administration officials said they hope their new diplomatic effort can be carried out without any direct U.S. military action--putting aside, at least for now, proposals for air attacks on Serb forces that President Clinton made during the campaign.

“What is under consideration is a process by which the United States puts its clout and prestige behind an initiative to improve the plan,” a senior Administration official said. “And by putting our clout and prestige behind that effort, it may make it possible to bring the parties to the table . . . through fairly aggressive diplomacy.”

“They want to take the Vance-Owen plan and shape it themselves,” said another official familiar with the Administration’s deliberations.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher, National Security Adviser Anthony Lake, Defense Secretary Les Aspin and other senior officials agreed on the framework for the new approach at a White House meeting Wednesday but sent the draft proposal back to a working group of middle-level officials for revisions, one aide said.

The Cabinet-level group, known as the National Security Council “Principals’ Committee,” scheduled a meeting for this afternoon to discuss the revised proposal. If they agree on it at the meeting, they may then take it to Clinton, the aide said.

But he refused to say when the new plan might be unveiled. “None of this has gone to the President yet--none of it,” he warned.

In public, Clinton and his aides have been elliptical about their intentions, pointing out that they have not settled on a policy.

“I think anything, any effort, that increases the chance of some ultimately peaceful solution is important,” Clinton told reporters at the White House. “But I think the United States has under review now all of its options in that area.”

Behind the vague language lay a dilemma for the new Administration: Clinton and his aides want to move quickly and resolutely in Bosnia, partly because they roundly criticized the previous Administration of President George Bush for failing to stop the slaughter of civilians there. But they are acutely aware that a general commitment to intervene in Bosnia could turn into a quagmire.

That is why they have continued to turn aside pressure to adopt the Vance-Owen plan, despite mounting pleas to do so.

“In Bosnia, we’ve inherited one of the most difficult foreign policy problems that can be imagined, I think one of the most difficult that I’ve ever known,” Christopher said. “I make no apologies for the fact that we’re taking time to ask the hard questions, sometimes unpleasant questions, in order to determine the fairness and feasibility of the plan that’s been put forward by Mr. Vance and Lord Owen.”

Officials say they hope to persuade Vance and Owen to continue as mediators but acknowledge that they are not certain whether the two will agree to do so. The acid-tongued Owen has been particularly bitter about the Administration’s refusal to back the plan he prepared through hard and dangerous months of shuttling around the region.

Another potential problem is the role of Russia, one of five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and, increasingly, an ally of Serbia. The Russian government of President Boris N. Yeltsin already has warned the United States against military action aimed at Serbian forces. U.S. officials are discussing ways to bring Moscow into the process, said one.

The much-disputed Vance-Owen plan would divide Bosnia into 10 provinces--three predominantly Muslim, three Serbian, three Croatian and one mixed--under a weak central government.

It would require Serbian militias to withdraw from some but not all of the territory from which they have driven out Muslims and Croats through murder and terror--a tactic the Serbs have dubbed “ethnic cleansing.”

The Muslim-led Bosnian government has objected strongly to that part of the plan. Bosnian Foreign Minister Haris Silajdzic told a congressional commission Thursday that it would “put the stamp of legitimacy on the rewards of aggression.”

Vance and Owen have argued that their proposal is the last chance for a negotiated peace, but Clinton aides have said they consider it both unfair to the Muslims and unenforceable by any combination of outside powers.

German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel asked Clinton to back the Vance-Owen plan at a White House meeting Thursday but later acknowledged that he had made no headway.