IFOR News
Morning update


14 June 1996

NATO hopeful about arresting Bosnian war crimes suspects
Bosnia enjoys spring but faces tough summer - Perry
Moslem war crimes suspects arrive in The Hague
Bildt expects Bosnia poll conditions to be met
Bosnian allies defer controversial defense law




U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry said on Thursday that Bosnia was
enjoying its first peaceful spring in five years but faced a long, tough summer.
NATO-led IFOR peacekeeping forces "had broken the cycle of violence in
Bosnia," he told a news conference after a meeting of NATO defense ministers.
Perry and NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana both told reporters
they were confident that elections could go ahead in Bosnia in
September, regardless of whether indicted war criminals were apprehended or
not. Solana said it was too early to discuss IFOR's future after elections.
A NATO official said the first talks on the matter would take place at an
informal meeting in Norway on September 25. British Defense Secretary
Michael Portillo told a news conference that any earlier discussion of the issue
would be premature. "We don't want to send any signals to the warring 

factions that will make them complacent," he said. Portillo said IFOR's troop
strength was unlikely to be reduced significantly before December 22,
when its mandate expires, but the force's "tone" might change, with engineers
replacing armoured units during normal troop rotations. A NATO official said
this underlined the increasing importance that IFOR was placing on Bosnia's
reconstruction. (Reuter 131806 GMT)

Two Moslems accused of beating and torturing Serbs at the Celebici
concentration camp in Bosnia arrived at the Yugoslav war crimes
tribunal in The Hague on Thursday, after being extradited by Bosnian
authorities. Deputy camp commander Hazim Delic, 36, and 23-year-old camp
guard Esad Landzo arrived in the Netherlands on a NATO aircraft and were
taken to the tribunal's Hague detention center. Their transfer had been
arranged jointly by the Bosnian authorities, the tribunal and the multinational
implementation force in Bosnia, IFOR. The two had been held in Sarajevo's
central jail since April after their indictment by the Hague tribunal the
previous month. (Reuter 131307 GMT)

International envoy Carl Bildt said on Thursday minimum conditions for
planned post-war Bosnian elections would be in place by September but
he conceded that nationalist forces would have the upper hand. Italian
Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini, the conference chairman, told ministers that
the future of Bosnia and the success of the Dayton pact depended on elections
going ahead. "Elections are the crucial point of the peace process. Not
holding them would be a big step backwards," Dini told a news
conference. "Everything would be delayed with serious consequences." Bosnia's
Moslem-led government opposes holding the polls until suspects indicted by
the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, in particular Bosnian Serb leader
Radovan Karadzic and army commander Ratko Mladic, are captured. "There
is no credibility to talk of having elections while war criminals are allowed to
roam free," Bosnia's U.N. ambassador Muhamed Sacirbey told Reuters.
Bosnian Serb prime minister Gojko Klickovic told the conference the election
should not be postponed. But he was quoted by the Bosnian Serb news agency
SRNA as saying the polls would bring about the creation of a Serb national
state. (Reuter 131835 GMT)

The parliament of Bosnia's Moslem-Croat federation on Thursday
postponed the adoption of a crucial law on creating a joint army,
highlighting a serious rift in their shaky alliance. Diplomats had reported
earlier that the controversial law was due to be adopted under intense pressure
from the United States. But parliamentary deputies spent the entire day
discussing laws on elections and the return of refugees, blaming each other for
violating guarantees set out in the Dayton peace agreement for Bosnia.
Officials said there was more work to be done to win agreement on the law and
rescheduled it for discussion next Wednesday. (Reuter 131845 GMT)