U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 95/09/21 DAILY PRESS BRIEFING

From: Dimitrios Hristu <hristu@corbett.harvard.edu>

U.S. State Department Directory

Subject: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 95/09/21 DAILY PRESS BRIEFING

FORMER YUGOSLAVIA

  Secretary's Meeting with Asst. Secretary Holbrooke re:

   Review of Situation in Bosnia/Holbrooke Itinerary ......  1,3,4,8-9,11-12

  Secretary's Meetings in New York on Bosnia ...............  1-2

  Bosnian Serb Compliance with NATO/UN Requirements ........  2

  Situation in Sarajevo/Safe Areas/Fighting ................  2-3,6-7

  Contact Group Role in Peace Process ......................  4-5

  Status/Next Steps of the Peace Process ...................  5-6

  Congressional Consultations re: Bosnia/Peace Implementation  9-11

[...]

MR. BURNS: George?

Q You said yesterday the Secretary is going to meet with Mr. Holbrooke today.

MR. BURNS: Yes.

Q Did they have their frank exchange yet? (Laughter)

MR. BURNS: George, I wouldn't characterize this as a frank exchange. They had a very useful and productive meeting this morning. (Laughter) They had a nice meeting this morning, a very good meeting.

The Secretary met with Dick Holbrooke at 9:00 a.m. this morning in the Secretary's office. A number of us were there. And Ambassador Holbrooke reported to the Secretary on his view of where the situation stands in Bosnia as a result of his travels through the region and his shuttle diplomacy among the various capitals.

The Secretary and he discussed next steps. They had a second meeting later on, and there will be further meetings in Washington this afternoon about this subject of Bosnia. We are, of course, now looking to the future and hoping very much that the momentum that the United States has been able to give to the peace process can be sustained; and, indeed, it might even be speeded up. That's our very great hope for the future.

Q Can you talk about meetings next week in New York, Bosnia- related?

MR. BURNS: I still do not yet have confirmation on specific meetings for next week, so I'm not able to talk about specific meetings; but the diplomacy has turned, I think, towards New York. There will be a number of leaders from the Balkans in New York for the opening of the U.N. General Assembly next week. Secretary Christopher will be there. I think all of his Contact Group Ministerial counterparts will be there as well.

So I'm certain that there will be a number of meetings, but I don't have anything specific to announce for you.

Q Can I follow that? For better or worse, a lot of Dick Holbrooke's attention since Geneva revolved around lifting the siege of Sarajevo, getting beyond the exclusion zone, and then of course stopping or trying to stop the Bosnian-Croatian advance in central and western Bosnia. Does the focus now shift back to the agenda and to following up on Geneva -- that is, the more political aspects of diplomacy? Will that be the focus in New York? Is that fair to say?

MR. BURNS: I think it's a fair question, and the way I would answer it is to say two things.

First, the United States is pleased that the United Nations and NATO were able to reach the judgment yesterday, last evening, that in fact the Bosnian Serbs had withdrawn a sufficient number of weapons and types of weapons to have met the requirements of the agreement.

That is a very good thing because it opens up the prospect that Sarajevo can now be a safe city. The people of Sarajevo, after four years of war, can actually have a peaceful winter. So we are encouraged by this.

As the President said in his statement, however, last evening, we'll be watching very closely, and the Bosnian Serbs must refrain from all offensive -- any offensive -- military operations within the Sarajevo zone. They must continue to adhere to every aspect of the agreement. The roads must remain open. The airport must remain open. The humanitarian and civilian goods -- food and medicine, and furniture and tools, and that kind of thing must continue to flow into the city. That's very important.

Now, hoping that the situation in Sarajevo will remain stable, yes, Joe, we're going to turn our sights once again the larger perspective of the peace process in Bosnia, which has as its starting point now the meeting in Geneva on September 8 which laid down the fundamental principles. Now we've got to work towards a peace conference. We've got to work towards a situation where the parties elect to sit down together and talk about their differences and talk about how they can resolve those differences and form a permanent peace.

To date, until today, the parties -- Croatia and Bosnia, Serbia, the Bosnian Serbs -- had been talking through the United States and to the United States, to our negotiating team, about the Contact Group Map and Plan, about the constitutional challenges that will face a future Bosnia-Herzegovina that we hope will result from a peace conference.

I think this phase will continue for some time -- this phase of the United States and our Contact Group partners being, in effect, the intermediary among the parties; but we hope to change that. So at some time in the future -- and it's very hard to predict when that will be in the future; it could be soon and it could be later -- some time they will elect to down together at a peace conference. That is our strategic objective here. That's what Secretary Christopher was discussing this morning with Deputy Secretary Talbott and Peter Tarnoff -- the Under Secretary of State -- and Dick Holbrooke, and others.

As I said, those discussions are continuing here. There will be further discussions around town this afternoon. That's where we're headed.

Q On that matter, can you tell us who's attending the White Houses meeting this afternoon, besides Mr. Holbrooke and General Shalikashvili?

MR. BURNS: I don't want to put myself in the position of announcing a White House meeting or confirming a White House meeting, much less saying who will attend. Obviously, there's a high level, David, of interest in this issue and participation by very senior people in the Government; and there will be meetings today and tomorrow, but it's not my place to announce those meetings.

Q Where is Secretary Christopher right now?

MR. BURNS: He is sitting at his desk, seven --

Q What type of seat?

MR. BURNS: How many floors away is this? Is this the Second Floor? Five floors above us. He's in his office. (Laughter). He's with a group of people, continuing the discussions that we began this morning on Bosnia.

Q Can you give us a time?

MR. BURNS: Excuse me?

Q At 2:30 he'll still be there?

MR. BURNS: No. He will not be there at 2:30. He'll be elsewhere in the city at 2:30, but I can't confirm where that location might be. (Laughter)

Q We're not far.

MR. BURNS: Excuse me?

Q We're not far away.

MR. BURNS: It depends on your perspective. (Laughter)

Q Last night, in the Secretary's speech, he indicated that some members of the Holbrooke team would be heading back to the region soon. Can you tell us if anyone's heading back and who they are?

MR. BURNS: Yes. I think this has been in the press this morning. A couple of members of Dick Holbrooke's team will be returning to the region this weekend -- Chris Hill and Roberts Owen. They are the key members of our team who deal with constitutional issues, and also with the Contact Group Map on the land issues.

I'm not at liberty to give you their itinerary; I don't have their itinerary. I'm not sure I'll be at liberty at any time in the next two days to give you their itinerary. We normally haven't done that with Dick's delegation in the specific sense.

The Secretary will be going to New York on Sunday night, and Peter Tarnoff and Dick Holbrooke will accompany him to New York for those meetings.

Charlie.

Q One presumes you'll get to the stage of peace talks. Does the United States have a view of its role? That is to say, would you accept a role just as a member of the Contact Group, or would you want a stronger unilateral role, or would you move the Contact Group out altogether and you convene it, or leave the three to convene it? Does the U.S. have a position on it?

MR. BURNS: I don't believe that the Contact Group or the parties have decided on a specific logistical framework for a peace conference. We certainly have not decided on the venue for a peace conference -- where it will held or when it will be held -- but, Charlie, I think it's fair to say that the United States has assumed a leadership role. We've assumed a leadership role, certainly, since July -- since the London Conference -- and we'll continue that. We're going to work very closely within the Contact Group to pursue these issues.

The relationship we have with the other members of the Contact Group is an important ingredient for our success, the success that we've had to date. I imagine that the Contact Group will stay together throughout this process as an intermediary among the parties, led by the United States.

Q Nick, would you argue with the assessment that Mr. Holbrooke has had some success in his consultations but has been unable so far to convince the parties to have direct negotiations?

MR. BURNS: I think a literal answer to that question would be -- I wouldn't argue with it, but I think there's a lot more behind that question, Sid.

It's important, after four years of war, to know that we've only had three weeks of peace discussions, of a real peace process that has the legitimate prospect of succeeding some time in the future. In that respect, you might say that we are certainly not at the middle of that process, we're not at the end; we might be at the end of the beginning of it -- a beginning phase of it.

If what is behind your question is a literal request for "where are we today," we're not at a peace conference. But if there is any implicit criticism that somehow we should have achieved more, I would beg to differ.

What we have achieved so far is the following in the last two and a half months. It's useful to resume this. The West, led by the United States and NATO has stopped the Bosnian Serb offensive all over Bosnia; not only in Bihac but also most particularly in Eastern Bosnia -- in Gorazde.

The West has relieved the stranglehold, for the most part, of Sarajevo and permitted a situation to develop where the people there have a chance to live in peace this winter.

The United States has also initiated a peace process which has had a very successful first meeting, where first principles have been agreed upon, and we are now driving towards a peace conference.

So I'm just taking the opportunity of the question to review where we are in time as of September 21. We've made tremendous progress. There's more hope now than there has been in four years for some kind of positive outcome in Bosnia.

Q I should clarify. Does the United States think it's now time for a peace conference and the parties do not?

MR. BURNS: No. If the United States thought it was time for a peace conference, we would have asked the parties to convene at some city -- which we have not done.

Secretary Christopher, Ambassador Holbrooke, Under Secretary Tarnoff have been very clear with the parties -- all of them have been involved in these discussions -- that they need to agree on a common agenda for a peace conference. They need to make further progress on the issues that will lie at the heart of a peace conference before we can put our weight -- "we" in the Contact Group -- behind a peace conference. So that lies at some point the future -- the convening of a peace conference.

We have not yet attempted to convene one and will not do so until the parties have made more progress.

Steve.

Q Are you on the threshold, do you think, in this interim period between the framework and the actual peace conference of reaching a cessation of hostilities or a cease-fire?

MR. BURNS: I can't say that we're on a threshold, Steve. I don't believe we're that close.

We certainly hope that the cease-fire around the 20-kilometer zone around Sarajevo -- within that zone, excuse me -- will be expanded to a nationwide cease-fire. In fact, that is one of the objectives of the agreement that was reached last Friday evening with the parties. We've not seen that happen. There is continued fighting in Central and Western Bosnia although, as I said yesterday, we do not believe that Banja Luka will be placed under military siege.

But, certainly, the fighting there continues. There is fighting in Bihac which continues. There has been some sporadic shelling and gunfire around Sarajevo itself -- around the city environs.

So we are a ways from that. We certainly want to reach that point. Now, is it an absolute precondition for a peace conference? We've never set that down as a condition.

In fact, I would just remind you. We had a Geneva meeting while NATO was bombing the Bosnian Serbs. We had a very successful round of shuttle diplomacy while that was happening. We'll take a peace conference whenever we can get it, whenever the parties are ready for it and the time is right.

We would like to have a nationwide cease-fire. That's up to the parties, and we're urging them towards that.

Bill.

Q To follow on that subject. There was some very good news today in the wires that the Croatians had stopped their offensive; in fact, were in retreat in northwest Bosnia; that the Muslims were also stymied by Serb defenses.

My question is, does it appear that rather than cease-fire that the war is coming to a standstill throughout Bosnia? And would that be something that would promote the peace conference?

MR. BURNS: Let me tell you what we hope and then I'll tell you what we think.

What we hope is that the parties will turn away from fighting throughout Bosnia and turn towards negotiations.

What we believe is that the fighting continues sporadically in Central and Western Bosnia. What appears to be happening is that the Bosnian Serbs are establishing defensive positions west of Banja Luka and that they're putting a considerable amount of military resources, personnel, and hardware into that defense of their central Serb city.

We would hope that the fighting would now halt completely and that the peace negotiations might be given further impetus.

Q Are you disturbed at all by -- there was a report of at least 1,000 paramilitary Serbs crossing the border heading into the Banja Luka area. Is that disturbing or destabilizing?

MR. BURNS: Any description of a force like that is certainly disturbing to any government like ours that wants the situation to become more peaceful and less militaristic and less hostile, less violent.

Yes, Mark.

Q Nick, did Holbrooke give you any sense of the proportion of ground that he's already covered -- all the issues that would be taken up in a final agreement, and the amount of time that he needs, or that his people need, to act as intermediaries before face-to-face talks can begin?

MR. BURNS: Yes, he did. This is a little like trying to follow events in Russia in early 1992. You've got to make sure that you're dealing with updated maps. In this case, Dick Holbrooke did bring what he thought was an updated map into the Secretary's office this morning. A good deal of their conversation early this morning centered around a map.

Ambassador Holbrooke described for the Secretary how he thought the map had changed; how successful in many ways the Bosnian Croatian offensive had been in a military point of view in acquiring a lot more real estate over the last eight days than they had acquired over the last four years..

They had a specific discussions of some of the diplomatic challenges that now flow out of the changed configuration of the map -- where the forces are. So that was a big part of their meeting this morning, and he did bring that assessment to the Secretary.

Q Did he give an assessment of the amount of progress that he's made so far? And what still remains to be done and how long it will take to do that?

MR. BURNS: Yes, he did. That was the purpose of the meeting this morning, to really present his views on those three questions.

Q And what were those views?

MR. BURNS: Ah, that's a different question. This was a private discussion, not open to the press, in the Secretary's office this morning.

Obviously, Dick Holbrooke was giving the Secretary his confidential views on his appreciation of the situation. The Secretary, in turn, gave his staff his own views as to how the situation must now be handled by the United States. The Secretary will obviously be in touch with the President and others here in this city about his advice for how we proceed. But that's all confidential. That's advice that's going to be given and, I think, received privately.

Q You were there on our behalf?

MR. BURNS: No, I was there on the Secretary's behalf. Now, I'm here on his behalf to communicate all this to you. You were not represented this morning, but I'm glad to say what I can say.

We're in a period where it's appropriate for us now to assess what has been accomplished and what has happened over the past month -- these incredible events that have changed the map as well as the political situation and the psychology of the situation. We're sitting back now thinking about that, reflecting on where to go next.

One thing is constant, and that is that there is a peace process that has been begun and we want to drive it forward. That's Secretary Christopher's strategic view of the situation.

Q Has Holbrooke, since his return to the States -- meaning the last 48 hours, I guess -- had to talk to Milosevic to keep him restrained or is he not worried about Milosevic sending troops in anymore?

MR. BURNS: We believe that with the Croatian and Bosnian commitment not to attack Banja Luka, and with the slowing down of the military offensive in the West -- in the central part of the country -- there's certainly no reason for the Serbian Government to involve itself militarily. We never thought there was a reason for them to do that, and we've called upon them not to do that.

Q The question was, have you called upon them not to do that in the last 48 hours?

MR. BURNS: I know that our Charge d'Affaires in Belgrade has certainly made that point to the government there. I don't believe there have been any personal conversations with Milosevic in the last 24 to 36 hours.

Q (Inaudible) going over to the Balkans -- Roberts Owen, and who was the other?

MR. BURNS: Chris Hill.

Q This morning, General Shalikashvili addressed the size of a U.S. contribution to the peace implementation force should a peace accord be reached. Is there a sense of how soon U.S. troops would actually have to be on the ground once an accord is signed?

MR. BURNS: This is really a very important question for those of us here. I know it's an important one for you as well.

I think what is clear and what is easy to answer is that an international peace-implementing force will not be deployed until there is a peace to safeguard. There is not now a peace to safeguard, and that peace can only come as a result of a peace conference.

Now, when will that happen? We just don't know. At some point in the future, we hope. We hope the parties get there. What size should the force be?

Secretary Christopher spoke on the record this week about this. Secretary Perry has spoken to this, as well as number of others. Really, the honest answer is, we don't know and we won't know until we know what the shape of the peace is and therefore what requirements flow out a peace settlement for a military safeguarding of that peace.

Where will the deployments have to be made? What will the mission be of these forces? Until we can answer those questions, the Pentagon and NATO will not be able to assess the manpower required for that mission.

We have talked in the past about, certainly, a sizable international force. Certainly, we think that NATO would play a central role -- not an exclusive role, perhaps, but a central role -- in peace implementation.

Q Can I follow on that? As part of a peace treaty eventually both combatant forces will have to redeploy at some point because the maps will change, and there's no doubt there will be troop movements. Does the U.S. have a view at what point NATO peacekeeping troops, including American troops, would go in? Would they go in before the redeployment of local forces to give confidence to them to redeploy, or after they've been redeployed so that there will be less danger to the peacekeepers?

MR. BURNS: That has not yet been decided. That question will be answered when the peace conference appears to be on the verge of success.

Q New topic?

MR. BURNS: Any more on Bosnia? David.

Q Does the President have the authority to send up to 25,000 U.S. troops to be involved in such a force without going to Congress first? I take it he does.

MR. BURNS: When we thought in July that there was a prospect or a possibility of a NATO extraction force in which the United States would play a leading role, there were consultations with the Congress.

Now that we are on the verge of another situation where there may be a need for a force to go in and implement a peace, as opposed to a defeat or a withdrawal, certainly the Administration will consult all along the way with the congressional leadership on that issue. That has begun.

There have already been a number of conversations by senior officials of this government with senior members of the Congress on this issue. What we cannot yet advise the Congress, though, David is how many troops are we talking about, which troops and for which mission.

Q (Inaudible) having chats with people and asking about whether there has to be a vote in the Administration's view, there doesn't, is that right?

MR. BURNS: I don't believe we've thought that at any point along the way when we were considering the other alternative that there had to be a vote. There certainly is an obligation on the part of the Executive Branch to consult.

Mark.

Q Regardless of any action that Congress may or may not take, is this Administration committed to sending in that force to help implement a peace agreement?

MR. BURNS: This Administration is publicly and privately committed to the parties and to our allies that we will be part of a peace implementation force, yes.

Bill, still on Bosnia?

Q Yes. I'm on Bosnia. Regarding the meeting this morning, can you tell us about the mood of those who were participating? Is this all seen as a success as we see it? Was there jubilation, and does this process -- this plan -- is this on track? Has this come off as planned pretty much?

MR. BURNS: I'm glad you asked that question, because it gives me a chance to maybe knock down some expectations. No champagne yet. (Laughter) I think the mood -- certainly, the Secretary's mood -- I can speak to that -- as well as others in the room was one of determination that we have come a long, long way since mid-July -- the low point when Srebrenica and Zepa fell -- that the United States has made a tremendous difference through our diplomacy and through our leadership in military circles; and that our American pilots and American military technology has made a tremendous difference.

There's a certain sense of satisfaction that we have helped to turn the situation around. However, there is no gloating here. There is no sense that we have achieved any kind of ultimate diplomatic success, because we haven't. The peace conference has not even been convened yet, much less successfully ended. Peace has not broken out. There's still fighting. People still have to live in safehavens.

So I think the mood is one we need to press forward. We need to keep this up. We need to continue our efforts diplomatically. We'd like the situation now to really focus more on the diplomacy than on the fighting, and that's our counsel and our advice to the parties.

Q The game plan is on track, I take it.

MR. BURNS: I think our game plan -- our strategic objective of convening and successfully concluding a peace conference is ahead of us, yes.

[...]

(The briefing concluded at 3:02 p.m.) END