U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 95/10/06 DAILY PRESS BRIEFING

From: hristu@arcadia.harvard.edu (Dimitrios Hristu)

U.S. State Department Directory

Subject: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE  95/10/06 DAILY PRESS BRIEFING

OFFICE OF THE SPOKESMAN

[...]

FORMER YUGOSLAVIA

Proximity Peace Talks in U.S. ............................16-17,19

Assistant Secretary Holbrooke's Diplomatic Mission:

  Mtg. w/President Tudjman; Contact Group Mtg.; Return to

  U.S.; Return to Region .................................17-18,20

Sec. Perry, Gen. Shalikashvili, D/S Talbott Discussions

  w/Russian MinDef Grachev: Peace Implementation Force ...18,20-23

Continued Fighting .......................................18-19

Ceasefire Agreement: Croatian Adherence ..................19-20

Agreement of September 8 .................................20

UN Implementation of Ceasefire, Eventual Withdrawal ......22-23

TURKEY

Prime Minister Ciller's Formation of New Government ......23

[...]

Q Could I ask you about Bosnia a little bit. Is the sitrep picture a little clearer now so far as the details of this get together? Will Tudjman be there? Will that election get in the way? Will you have to, to make it convenient for everybody, move the date a little bit to the end of the month? And I guess in our minds is whether the Secretary will be bound for Amman, or there already -- whether he will or would have or would like to have had, at least get it going? Can you touch on some of these questions that remain after yesterday's --

MR. BURNS: I would be glad to.

Q Please.

MR. BURNS: The Secretary will definitely be involved in the Proximity Peace Talks here in the United States. I believe that as a result of Dick Holbrooke's conversation with President Tudjman in Zagreb yesterday that it's more likely now that these talks will begin around the 30th or 31st of October rather than the 25th of October, for a very good reason.

Croatia, which is one of the three major parties to these talks, will be holding national elections around the 25th of October. President Tudjman requested a delay by about a week in the convening of our talks here in the United States, and we have agreed to that.

We have still not determined what specific site we will use for these talks in the United States. It will be an isolated site. It will be away from a major urban area -- although it may be close to a major urban area, but certainly outside that area -- because we want a Camp David-like setting without going to Camp David. We want to give these leaders the opportunity -- three heads of state -- to sit down with each other as well as with the United States, the European Union and Russia to discuss these very complex issues.

A couple of things, Barry: As a result of the meeting that Dick Holbrooke had with President Tudjman, we are very pleased that the Croatian Government will, in effect, abide by the terms of the cease- fire agreement that was successfully negotiated and announced yesterday. This is significant. You remember that Croatia was not a signatory to this particular agreement, but Dick Holbrooke has been assured by President Tudjman that Croatia will abide by the terms of the agreement, and that means that by one minute past midnight on October 10, of course, there should be a total cessation of military operations throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina.

I can also tell you that I believe it's Dick Holbrooke's intention to take one more shuttle mission to the region after his current shuttle mission concludes tonight. He's in Rome today for a meeting of the expanded Contact Group. He may stay on in Europe for a couple of days on a personal basis. He'll be returning to the United States early next week. I would then expect at some point late next week or in the following week, he'll return to the Balkans and to Europe for a further round of shuttle diplomacy to sharpen the agenda for the U.S.-held talks in late October and to try to establish a firm agenda that we hope will be successful for those talks.

In addition to that, I think the Pentagon announced yesterday that Secretary Perry and General Shalikashvili and Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott will be traveling to Geneva this Sunday for discussions with the Russian Defense Minister, Minister Grachev.

These discussions are intended to review in a fair amount of detail the options that will be available to us to implement the peace in Bosnia if a peace conference succeeds. This is a very important point. NATO, we believe, will be the center of the peace implementation efforts, but NATO would like to cooperate with Russia in helping to insure the peace in Bosnia. There are a number of options that have been developed by the Russian Government, by NATO planners in Brussels, and by the United States, and they'll be reviewed on Sunday in Geneva.

Q Can I pick you up on -- pick up on a couple of things? Croatians, blessed be the peacemakers, but they're sure squeezing a lot of action in before the cease-fire. The U.N. reports that 3,000 Croatian troops are engaged, even possibly within Bosnia right now, to grab as much -- to help the Bosnian Government pick up as much ground as it can before the cease-fire takes effect.

Does the U.S. have a view of this frenzied, hurried, last-minute military activity?

MR. BURNS: We don't approve of it. All military operations must cease by October 10. We would certainly prefer that they cease now. The fact that Croatia, Bosnia and the Bosnian Serbs continue to fight in northwest Bosnia, in western and central Bosnia, south of Sarajevo -- and there are reports of fighting today in all those regions -- we think is futile.

The territory has exchanged hands a number of times during the last four years, a number of times during the last three or four weeks. There is a rough equilibrium now. We believe this is not an exact measurement of the map, but a rough equilibrium between the territory held by the Bosnian Serbs and the territory held by the Federation -- the Croatians and the Bosnians.

This provides a good basis for beginning the Proximity Peace Talks in the United States. There's nothing to be gained from further offensive military action except bloodshed, except loss of life, except the continuation of the flow of refugees. We call on the Croatian Government, the Bosnian Government and the Bosnian Serbs to stop their activities.

Q You talked about possibly moving the start of the Camp David- like, not-at-Camp-David talks through the 29th -- I don't know what's wrong with Camp David, but that's another matter -- 30th or 31st, but the Secretary will be in the Middle East. You said he wants to participate. Do you mean he will not kick them off, but, when he comes back, he will dive in. Is that what you mean?

MR. BURNS: He hasn't decided yet.

Q He may not leave right away?

MR. BURNS: We have not set a specific date for the convening of the conference. I said on or about the 30th or the 31st.

Q But Amman is a specific date.

MR. BURNS: Amman is specific. The Secretary will be leading the U.S. delegation to the Amman economic conference. I believe the starting date is October 29, Sunday the 29th, and he intends to be there.

What he hasn't done is make specific plans for what will be the specific opening date of the conference -- whether he will be there at the opening or whether he'll come a couple of days later. But I think for the most part the majority of these discussions will be chaired by Dick Holbrooke throughout the course of these Proximity Peace Talks.

The Secretary will be there. He'll play a role when it is needed, and he intends to do that. But he will not be there for the entire process. That will be Dick Holbrooke, Carl Bildt, and Minister Ivanov.

Q If I might follow on Tudjman, Nick. Will there be an attempt to get Tudjman to sign on with the other signatories, in some other fashion perhaps, but to sign up formally Croatia to keep the cease-fire. There was an instance a few weeks ago where they said they were in cease-fire, and they were not. They were on the offensive. And there was a report a couple of weeks ago also about Croatians taking a Muslim village and expelling Muslims, an ethnic cleansing on their part. So is the United States going to attempt to pin him down?

MR. BURNS: On the first question, this was an agreement achieved yesterday between the principal parties to the conflict within Bosnia itself, the Bosnian Muslims and the Bosnian Serbs -- the Bosnian Government and the Bosnian Serbs.

There is no need, we think, to have a Croatian signature on this agreement. There is an absolute need, however, to have Croatian adherence to this agreement; and we have been told by the President of Croatia that that will occur. His word is important, and the conversation that we had yesterday is important. We have every confidence that the cease-fire will be observed by Croatia.

On the second issue, Bill, I think we've said every day this week that the United States is highly disturbed by the allegations that when entering the Krajina region in early August, Croatian military forces may have executed a number of elderly Serb civilians. They certainly were engaged in the plundering and looting of Serb towns and Serb houses.

This is an issue for the international community to investigate. The United Nations intends to do so. The War Crimes Tribunal is interested in this issue, and we support the activities of the War Crimes Tribunal.

Q Do we believe that Tudjman's word is a bond for Croatia?

MR. BURNS: President Tudjman told Dick Holbrooke yesterday that Croatia would abide by the cease-fire, and we certainly expect that will be the case.

Q Nick, have any of the agreements, either written or otherwise, that have been worked on so far by Mr. Holbrooke's team set out anything about what the role of the Bosnian Croats would be in a new Bosnia? Is there going to be, for example, any area that they will govern locally or have control of?

MR. BURNS: The September 8 agreement that was negotiated in Geneva calls for one state with one set of borders, obviously -- secure borders -- and two entities within that state. It do

.