The Western alliance threatened Tuesday to launch air strikes on Serbian positions around the Bosnian town of Srebrenica unless the Serbs allow Dutch soldiers to replace Canadian troops.
Similar threats have been issued before by the U.S. and its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and have been routinely ignored by the Serbs. But this time Western leaders, including President Clinton, said they really meant it.
Winding up a two-day summit meeting at NATO headquarters here, Clinton and leaders of the other 15 alliance nations sanctioned air strikes around Srebrenica and called on their military experts to recommend how to open the airport at Tuzla in central Bosnia so relief supplies can reach civilians.
They also restated a five-month-old threat of air strikes to prevent “the strangulation” of Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital. But it was clear that Sarajevo carried a lesser priority than Srebrenica, where the UN has been prevented by Bosnian Serbs from replacing a 300-man Canadian contingent with Dutch troops.
Clinton told a news conference that alliance leaders voted unanimously to support an Anglo-French proposal to threaten military action to secure Serbian compliance with NATO demands in Srebrenica and Tuzla.
But he said there was still a difference of opinion about the use of air power to relieve the siege of Sarajevo. However, he said NATO nations were closer to “real unanimity” about air strikes than they were last August, when NATO adopted a resolution threatening strikes to relieve Sarajevo and other beleaguered areas.
Clinton said he understood British and French reservations about air strikes around Sarajevo because of the possible threat to their peacekeeping troops. But, he said, “I do not believe there is a difference of opinion among us about this now.”
Despite the tough words on Srebrenica and Tuzla, NATO air strikes against the two towns appeared unlikely. In the light of past history, either the Serbs will now remove the sources of friction or NATO will back away from its threats.
The latter course seems the least likely. Clinton, who tried and failed previously to get the alliance to conduct air strikes against the Serbs, told the summit leaders that they should not issue threats if they don’t intend to follow through on them.
What happens next, he said, depends on the behavior of the Bosnian Serbs. “We shall see if our resolve is there,” he said. “My resolve is there.”
The Serbs forces’ chief of staff, Manojlo Milovanovic, dismissed the warning. “They cannot strike at us without also hitting UN forces,” he said.
Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic said the threat of air strikes could jeopardize peace talks in the former Yugoslavia. His forces continued their shelling of Sarajevo, killing 6 people and wounding 44.
A senior U.S. official said any use of air power would be close air support of UN troops in Srebrenica and Tuzla. He ruled out any use of U.S. ground troops to open or operate the Tuzla airport, but said the U.S. might supply technical assistance, such as electronics equipment, to the airport once it was reopened.
The French claimed to have won the argument about use of air strikes. A French official said Secretary of State Warren Christopher telephoned French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe last Friday, asking him to keep Bosnia off the NATO agenda and vowing never to accept a resolution that mentioned Srebrenica and Tuzla, but Juppe held firm.
The British have previously argued against military measures that might expose British peacekeeping troops in Bosnia to retaliation by the Serbs.
Prime Minister John Major said there was “a very real determination” to carry out measures to lift the blockade and reopen the airport at Tuzla.
The Western allies have been trying for months to obtain the opening of the airport. U.S. officials say 1 million people risk death from starvation or exposure to winter weather conditions unless humanitarian aid can get through via Tuzla.
Despite U.S. attempts to downplay the issue, Bosnia dominated the summit agenda, overshadowing a decision to offer East European nations a Partnership for Peace plane instead of immediate NATO membership.
The partnership concept, advanced by the U.S., calls for joint military maneuvers and other forms of cooperation leading to full NATO membership after several years.
