U.N. Reports Violations of Bosnia Truce Near Bihac Pocket

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — U.N. peacekeepers Wednesday reported fighting between government forces and Serbian rebels on the edge of the northwestern Bihac pocket, in what may be the worst violation yet of a cease-fire brokered by former President Jimmy Carter.

The ground attacks with tank artillery and mortar fire around the town of Bosanska Krupa and nearby Cojluk apparently were launched by Bosnian Serbs, according to U.N. spokesman Alex Ivanko.

He said preliminary information on the fighting had been provided in a verbal report from a U.N. military observer in the Bihac region but that the account was “light on details.”

The fighting apparently diminished by midday.

Nonetheless, Ivanko called the combat “a serious violation of the cease-fire,” which calls for both sides to lay down their weapons.

“We hope it will end very quickly and that it will not affect the general cease-fire,” added U.N. spokesman Thant Myint-U in Zagreb, Croatia.

The Bosnian government has not commented on that breach of the accord or on heavy fighting reported in nearby Velika Kladusa on Tuesday between the army and renegade Muslims, under rebel warlord Fikret Abdic, together with Serbs from the Krajina region of Croatia.

About 300 artillery and mortar explosions landed in and near the town before combat quieted Wednesday, U.N. officials said.

Fighting has slowed throughout the rest of the country since the Muslim-led government and Bosnian Serbs signed a cease-fire on Christmas Eve and a broader, four-month cessation-of-hostilities accord on New Year’s Eve.

Abdic agreed to respect the truce but has not been doing so, Ivanko said.

The accord calls for a cease-fire until May 1, a separation of forces and positioning of U.N. Protection Forces between the two sides, and freedom of movement for all U.N. troops and operations.

The truce also calls for the government and rebels to resume ruptured negotiations to end their 33-month war.

Representatives of the Contact Group--the United States, Russia, Germany, France and Britain--are scheduled to meet in Bonn today in an effort to pick up the peace momentum and press for a negotiated settlement of the war.

The government has accepted a Contact Group peace plan that gives a Muslim-Croat federation 51% of the country and the Serbs 49%.

But Serbian leaders are pressing to hold on to more of the 70% of Bosnia-Herzegovina that they control militarily.

The German Foreign Ministry said the group will discuss “which steps can be taken to continue the efforts toward a political peace settlement against the background of the cease-fire agreed for Bosnia-Herzegovina.”

In Sarajevo, government forces reportedly began the withdrawal of about 250 soldiers from a demilitarized zone on Mt. Igman, while a U.N.-led joint commission overseeing implementation of the truce met for about eight hours to discuss issues including the reopening to civilian traffic of roads into the capital. Sarajevo is encircled by Serbs.

U.N. troops were to inspect the demilitarized zone late Wednesday.