Fierce fighting raged Friday between the Bosnian army and Croatian militia in southern and central Bosnia-Herzegovina as the leaders of the warring Serbs, Croats and Muslims left the international peace talks in Geneva and headed home for consultations.
The state-run radio in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo reported heavy fighting between the Muslim-dominated Bosnian government and the Croatian forces, known as HVO, around the central towns of Gornji Vakuf and Jablanica.The radio also reported sporadic shelling in the southern town of Mostar, where the formerly allied Muslims and Croats are fighting for control of the town and the surrounding villages.
Artillery exchanges occurred even while Cedric Thornberry, the deputy chief of operations for the U.N. Protection Force in former Yugoslavia, was touring the shell-torn town.
Thornberry visited Mostar in an attempt to persuade Bosnian Croats to allow deliveries of humanitarian aid to 35,000 Muslims trapped in the eastern section of the town.
However, the HVO forces stopped the U.N.-organized relief convoy from reaching the Muslim-occupied suburbs and forced it to return to its base in the Croatian Adriatic port of Split, Sarajevo radio said.
In Geneva, Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic called for the city of Mostar to be placed under a European Community administrator to protect both Muslim and Croat citizens as part of any territorial arrangement.
Izetbegovic, a Muslim, accused Bosnian Croats of conducting an "ethnic cleansing" campaign against the majority Muslims, and said the Croats launched "an open war against the Bosnian Army in the city."
"The Bosnian delegation has therefore proposed an EC-administered joint authority for the city that would guarantee the safety of Muslims and Croats alike," Izetbegovic said in a statement.
Also in Geneva, international mediators suspended the peace talks on Bosnia-Herzegovina until Aug. 30 after handing the three warring factions a compromise proposal, including a map dividing Bosnia into three ethnic Serbian, Muslim and Croatian mini-republics.
This foresees three ethnic and independent states with a only a weak, mixed central body.