DATE: Saturday, November 1, 1997            TAG: 9711010717

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY DAVE MAYFIELD, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: SUFFOLK                           LENGTH:   60 lines

NATO LEADER CALLS BOSNIA AN EXAMPLE OF ``NEW MISSIONS''

A day after a key international mediator in Bosnia said NATO should keep its peacekeeping force there for another five years, the alliance's Secretary General said Friday that it is too early to predict how long NATO will remain in the troubled European nation.

During a visit to the U.S. Atlantic Command's simulation facility in Suffolk, Javier Solana said NATO is working ``as hard as possible'' to create the stability that will let it withdraw its military force from Bosnia next June, as planned.

``The only thing that I can say is that the heads of states, the heads of government for the alliance in . . . July made a very clear statement of long-term commitment with Bosnia,'' Solana said during a brief press conference.

``What shape, what structure, what configuration that long-term commitment is going to take is too early to say.''

Solana cited NATO's presence in Bosnia, an outgrowth of the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords, as ``an example of the type of new missions'' the 16-member alliance is pursuing in the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse and the end of the Cold War.

As many as 60,000 troops or medical personnel from the United States and NATO's other member nations, as well as from 20 non-member countries, have been stationed in Bosnia at one time. They provided security during the Bosnian municipal elections in September.

But despite efforts to restore normalcy, the country remains bitterly divided, and factions are heavily armed. The continuing tension prompted Carlos Westendorp, the Spanish diplomat who is the leading international mediator in Bosnia, to call for an extension of the NATO presence.

Solana, a Spaniard who spent several years as a physics student at the University of Virginia, said he respected Westendorp's opinion. ``We'll see how things evolve before we take a new decision,'' he said.

During Solana's visit to Hampton Roads, he met with Adm. Harold W. Gehman Jr., commander-in-chief of the U.S. Atlantic Command. In his dual role as Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic, Gehman oversees one of NATO's two major military commands and the only one in North America. The admiral assumed the two Norfolk-based commands in September.

Solana indicated that he and Gehman discussed the potential for increased NATO use of the Atlantic Command's Joint Training, Analysis and Simulation Center in Suffolk to simulate some exercises now conducted live with real troops.

Currently, the center is running a simulated war that teams U.S. and British military forces. And during December and January, the facility will hold a simulated ``peace-enforcement'' operation that will bring in representatives of most NATO countries.

Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Martin R. Berndt, who oversees the center as the Atlantic Command's director for joint training, said Solana's visit let facility officials ``really reinforce'' the cost-effectiveness of simulation in those cases where live exercises aren't necessary.

``The customers that have taken advantage of this seem to think that what we have been able to duplicate out here is as real as it gets,'' he added. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN/The Virginian-Pilot

NATO Secretary General Javier Solana in Suffolk.

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