Hundreds of Bosnian Serb soldiers withdrew from a strategic peak outside Sarajevo Wednesday in a move to ease the threat of Western air strikes and restart peace talks.
Earlier in the day, commanders for the warring Serbs, Croats and Muslim-led government ended 17 hours of talks by signing a wide-ranging military plan for bringing peace to Bosnia. U.N. spokesman Barry Frewer said the agreement was similar in tone to the settlement that brought a shaky peace to neighboring Croatia after its 1991 Serb-Croat war.Mount Igman was an important conquest for the Bosnian Serbs because the last clandestine arms supply route to Sarajevo's Muslim-led defenders crosses it.
But the capture of Igman and a neighboring mountain last week led Bosnia's Muslim president, Alija Izetebegovic, to boycott the Geneva peace talks and NATO to plan air strikes to break the Serb siege on Sarajevo.
With the threat of NATO air strikes looming, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic had promised to pull his troops off the mountain to bring Izetbegovic back to the bargaining table. But the withdrawal stalled as Serbs and the government dickered over who should step in to take control of the mountain - government soldiers or U.N. peacekeepers.
At least 400 Serb soldiers left the peak Wednesday to board buses in Trnovo, a Serb-held town at the base of the mountain.
"It's finished with Igman," said Lt. Drago Grubesic, a transport officer of the Serbs' First Krajina Brigade. "But that doesn't mean we won't be back if necessary."
Grubesic said about 2,500 soldiers had left Igman and nearby Mount Bjelasnica, most of them on Tuesday. Seven hundred more would come down later in the day, he said, but 1,500 more would remain on the mountain until U.N. troops take control, likely within a week.
Trucks, gunnery units and Serb troops passed early Wednesday through the Serb headquarters of Pale. Angry soldiers said they had been ordered off of Igman, and empty buses were seen headed in the mountain's direction.
The commander of U.N. troops in Bosnia, Belgium's Francis Briquemont, said reports of Serbs retaking and reinforcing positions on Igman were "totally in contradiction" with reports from a French battalion sent to the peak.
Briquemont said he thought a day or two for the Serbs would be needed to actually complete withdrawal. He conceded that U.N. observers had noted troop movements on the mountain but could not say what they mean.
The military agreement signed today adds muscle to a July 30 cease-fire that has kept Sarajevo largely quiet, though fighting has continued in other parts of Bosnia. It would go into effect a week after a peace deal is completed in Geneva. The talks remained suspended Wednesday
The military settlement would be the basis for agreement on the eventual full withdrawal of forces and heavy weapons, mine-clearing and monitoring borders, Frewer said.
It was signed by the commanders of the three sides, Bosnian Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic, government commander Rasim Delic, and Bosnian Croat commander Milivoje Petkovic.