The Bosnian government showed its increasing disdain for the U.N. peacekeeping mission Friday by declaring it will no longer talk to the top U.N. envoy to the region.
Bosnia's minister for relations with the United Nations charged that envoy Yasushi Akashi had lost his legitimacy because his headquarters rejected a U.N. military plan to force open an aid corridor into Sarajevo and agreed to stop NATO airstrikes against Serbs.The United Nations has repeatedly denied promising the Serbs there will be no more airstrikes.
On the battlefield, government troops pressed an offensive to crack the 38-month-old siege of Sarajevo, and Serbs retaliated with shelling.
At least four civilians were killed and six others wounded when a shell exploded close to a small market, hospital officials said.
The failure of the United Nations to alleviate the war's devastation has led all sides in the conflict to condemn the peacekeeping mission, and the government has hinted that it may ask the soldiers to leave.
Today, Bosnia's minister for relations with the United Nations, Hasan Muratovic, charged that the U.N. mission headquarters in Zagreb, Croatia, had severely weakened the role of U.N. officials.
"We don't talk to Yasushi Akashi any more," Muratovic was quoted as saying in Friday's edition of the Sarajevo daily newspaper Oslobodjenje. "For us he does not exist any more."
Akashi's spokesman Philip Arnold said, "I've no particular comment except that Mr. Akashi is always ready to talk to all the parties. That's why he's here and that's what he'll continue to try to do."
Muratovic charged that the U.N. headquarters in Zagreb had rejected a plan by the U.N. commander in Bosnia, Lt. Gen. Rupert Smith, to force open an aid corridor into Sarajevo.