Fighting subsided in Bosnia's capital Thursday, but a U.N. convoy on a mission to open the airport for relief flights remained stranded on the city's outskirts after an escort column was attacked.
The Belgrade-based Tanjug news agency said the leader of Bosnia's Serbs, Radovan Karadzic, proposed that all of Sarajevo be put under U.N. protection.Serb militias have besieged the city for two months as part of a campaign to carve their own republic from the newly independent Bosnia. But Muslim-led forces have scored some gains in recent fighting, and U.N. trade sanctions are pressuring neighboring Serbia to rein in the ethnic Serbs it has been aiding in Bosnia's civil war.
Meanwhile, Bulgaria's premier, Filip Dimitrov, urged that U.N. or NATO troops impose a cease-fire in the disintegrated Yugoslav federation. He said he feared continued fighting could spread to other Balkan nations.
U.N. and European leaders have not shown any inclination to intervene without a cease-fire already in effect.
The U.N. team at the airport hopes to restore a cease-fire agreed to by all parties that would permit the airport to reopen on Friday so desperately needed food and medicine could be flown in.