Balkan Foes Voice Cautious Hope as Peace Talks Begin : Negotiations: Christopher calls meeting at Air Force base in Ohio ‘last, best chance for peace.’ Serbian, Croatian leaders agree to speed up discussions on Eastern Slavonia.

The long-awaited peace talks aimed at ending the 3 1/2-year-old war in Bosnia-Herzegovina opened Wednesday in a Spartan barracks compound at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, with all sides expressing cautious hope that a peace accord finally might be at hand.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher, here to inaugurate the talks, set the tone for the negotiations, telling a welcoming crowd at the base landing strip that “we’re embarking today on a process that well may be the last, best chance for peace” in Bosnia.

“I hope that someday Dayton, Ohio, will be remembered as the site of the place where the killing finally was brought to a halt, and we started building a better future for all the people of former Yugoslavia--especially the people of the war-torn Bosnia-Herzegovina,” Christopher said.

The first session yielded a surprise bonus as Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and Croatian President Franjo Tudjman agreed to speed up negotiations over Tudjman’s demand for the return to Croatia of Eastern Slavonia--a dispute that could prove a stumbling block in the wider talks.

The stepped-up negotiations on Eastern Slavonia, brokered by Christopher in a private meeting with the two leaders, are expected to provide momentum for the broader peace talks. Tudjman had threatened to go to war if the claim was not settled.

State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns also reported that the representatives of the three warring factions--Milosevic, Tudjman and Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic--ended the day apparently on improved terms, in animated conversation and shaking hands with one another.

Despite the high-flown rhetoric, the mood here was businesslike--and grim. The war in Bosnia, which began in April, 1992--after the breakup of the former Yugoslav federation--has become the most brutal conflict in Europe since World War II, claiming an estimated 250,000 lives.

Just after the first day’s negotiations, Christopher told reporters that the representatives of the warring factions had “hardened their positions” during the preliminary talks, but he dismissed the development as “natural” in any first-day session.

“I found a willingness to negotiate and follow U.S. leadership, but I also found vast differences [still] to be bridged,” he said.

Except for a brief opening plenary session, most of the day Wednesday was spent in preliminary talks among Christopher and the representatives for the three warring factions--Milosevic, Izetbegovic and Tudjman.

Immediately after the public portion of the talks, chief U.S. mediator Richard Holbrooke gave each of the delegations copies of U.S.-written position papers, containing draft “framework agreements” on seven key issues, designed to serve as a basis for the negotiations.

Christopher said later that the papers, whose contents were kept secret by the diplomats, include working proposals on general peace terms, the separation of forces, territorial boundaries, constitutional principles, the holding of elections, the return of refugees and economic reconstruction.

U.S. officials said they also have prepared a map showing the current status of territories that could be divided up virtually evenly between the Bosnian Serbs and the Muslim-Croat federation, but they cautioned there was no guarantee that the boundaries would remain intact during the talks.

The developments came as President Clinton met in Washington with members of Congress to discuss Bosnia, among other things, and to go over the Administration’s latest plan to send U.S. troops to the region to serve as peacekeepers if a peace accord is signed.

There was no indication that lawmakers had abandoned their skepticism about--and, in some cases, outright opposition to--the deployment of U.S. ground troops as peacekeeping forces.

Clinton has promised to send up to 25,000 U.S. troops--the exact number will depend upon the terms of any peace agreement--as part of a NATO-led contingent of about 60,000 troops for helping enforce any accord. The United States also will contribute 2,000 troops to a joint U.S.-Russian support mission.

Christopher confirmed reports earlier Wednesday that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will not send troops into a peacekeeping operation if Bosnian Serb nationalist leader Radovan Karadzic and army commander Ratko Mladic are still in command. Both have been indicted as war criminals by a United Nations tribunal.

The brief plenary session was held in a stark, gray-and-mauve conference room in which the representatives of the three warring factions and officials from the allies who are sponsoring the talks sat at a round table listening to Christopher’s welcoming speech.

At the secretary’s behest, Milosevic, Izetbegovic and Tudjman shook hands with one another--albeit stiffly and perfunctorily--before sitting down for the ceremony.

U.S. and allied diplomats plan to serve as messengers and mentors during the talks, relaying the bargaining positions of each of the warring factions to the others in hopes of hammering out a settlement.

Although Tudjman is scheduled to fly home tonight, with plans to come back in a few days, the three representatives essentially have agreed to stay for the remainder of the negotiations, with each of them placing his own political reputation on the line.

While no one knows for sure when--or how--the talks ultimately will end, U.S. officials said privately they expect to know within two weeks whether the discussions are likely to bear fruit.

U.S. officials said that in bilateral talks just before the plenary session began, Christopher outlined general ground rules for the talks with each of the three factions, securing agreements that they would bargain in good faith and eschew any public statements during the period.

He also went over specific issues that the United States planned to address, telling Milosevic that Washington was particularly concerned with continued reports of human rights violations by the Bosnian Serbs and of paramilitary groups operating on behalf of Serbian nationalists.

Christopher also outlined four conditions on which the allies will insist as part of the peace negotiations: preservation of Bosnia as a single state, special treatment for Sarajevo, guaranteed human rights for all citizens and resolution of the dispute over Eastern Slavonia, a Croatian Serb-controlled strip of Croatia along the Serbian border.

Earlier, Milosevic told reporters that he is “an optimist” with regard to the prospect of a peace settlement, saying that “we attach great importance to the peace initiative of the United States, and we are here to join the effort to bring peace to the Balkans. We hope we will succeed.”

Haris Siladjic, prime minister of Bosnia, also was upbeat publicly. “I think we can do a lot here,” he said in an arrival statement. “We came here with great hope. We came here to get what we don’t have in Bosnia--and that’s justice and democracy.”

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What They Want

A glimpse at what the different sides are after in the peace talks:

Bosnian government-Croatian federation

* Bosnia-Herzegovina as an undivided nation

* A central government in Sarajevo

* The ability to confederate with Croatia

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Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro)

* Autonomous region within Bosnia for Bosnian Serbs

* The ability to confederate with Bosnian Serbs

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Croatia

* Croatian Serb rebels must return Eastern Slavonia to Croatian control by Nov. 30, or fighting may resume

* The ability to confederate with Bosnian government-Croatian federation