U.N. peacekeepers are making contingency plans for withdrawal in case Washington moves ahead with plans to end an arms embargo on Bosnia.
"If the arms embargo is lifted in October, the U.N. is likely to withdraw from Bosnia," U.N. spokesman Michael Williams said Friday.President Clinton has set an Oct. 15 deadline for Bosnian Serbs to accept a peace plan. If they don't, the United States will ask the United Nations to exempt the Bosnian government from the U.N. arms embargo.
This would allow Washington to sell arms to the Muslim-led government, which has been badly outgunned by the Serbs throughout the 28-month war. That would almost certainly mean more fighting.
"We are peacekeeping forces, and up till now there hardly was any peace to be kept," Williams said. "It would be even worse with the flare-up in fighting."
The push to end the embargo follows the Serbs' rejection of the latest peace plan. Fighting has since escalated, a Sarajevo cease-fire in place since February is growing shaky and peacekeepers have been repeatedly challenged.
Serb officials met with the U.N. commander for Bosnia, Lt. Gen. Sir Michael Rose, and civil affairs chief Viktor Andreyev and the two sides agreed to sign an anti-sniping accord on Sunday, U.N. spokeswoman Claire Grimes said.
U.N. officials also got permission to send supply convoys to peacekeepers in the eastern Muslim enclaves of Zepa, Srebrenica and Gorazde, which are surrounded by Serb-held territory.