Fighting erupted around Sarajevo's airport Saturday but U.N. officers pressed on with talks to secure a truce to fly in supplies for 300,000 civilians trapped in the Bosnian capital.

Rebel Serbs, who hold the closed airport, fought for several hours with Moslem defense forces in the surrounding Butmir district, local journalists and residents said.Fighting with artillery, mortars and rockets broke out in the afternoon after a calm morning in Sarajevo, which has seen some of the worst violence in a European capital since World War II.

At least 14 people were killed and 24 wounded in the city in the past 24 hours, a local crisis center said.

Gen. Lewis Mackenzie, head of a U.N. peace-keeping team, met Serb leaders and their Slav Moslem and Croat rivals during the day to try to secure a truce and clear the way for opening the airport for humanitarian relief flights.

He told reporters he hoped to have the airport open soon and that a Canadian battalion of 1,100 troops was on standby but a cease-fire must be in place first.

U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali hopes to go to the Security Council this week to get approval to dispatch U.N. troops to take control of the airport for the relief flights.

Local residents contacted by telephone said a truce still looked a long way off, with the warring factions keeping up blistering artillery duels and street fighting.

Serb irregulars rebelled after Bosnia-Herzegovina's Moslems and Croats voted overwhelmingly for independence in March. More than 5,700 people have been killed and 20,000 wounded since.

The Serb forces encircled Sarajevo two months ago and have rained down heavy artillery fire on all parts of city.

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Radovan Karadzic, leader of the self-proclaimed Republic of Serbian Bosnia-Herzegovina, has called a unilateral cease-fire from Monday and asked Moslem and Croat forces to follow suit.

But that gesture was quickly dismissed by Bosnian Foreign Minister Haris Silajdzic as a delaying tactic while the Serb siege starved the people of Sarajevo into submission.

In Belgrade, dozens of musicians knelt in a park to beg Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic to quit over the sectarian killing in neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina, a former Yugoslav republic.

A U.N. trade embargo imposed on the rump Yugoslav state, now including only Serbia and Montenegro, has put pressure on Milosevic to resign, partly because of the collapsing economy.

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