
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, May 11, 1993                   TAG: 9305110161
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: From the Los Angeles Times and The Baltimore Sun
DATELINE: CLEVELAND                                LENGTH: Medium

U.S. PUTS OFF BOSNIAN PLAN

Accepting diplomatic defeat at the hands of its own allies, the Clinton administration admitted Monday that it has failed to win western European approval for stronger steps to end the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina and said it was shelving the problem for at least a week.

Bosnia "is in kind of a holding pattern for the moment," said White House press secretary Dee Dee Meyers. "The president is working to build a consensus for action. I don't think we are expecting any action in the immediate future."

Meyers said that President Clinton had discussed Bosnia and other issues with Russian President Boris Yeltsin on Monday morning and planned to consult with other Europeans leaders this week.

But, she said, Clinton was not planning any public statements on Bosnia this week and he hoped to turn his - and the nation's - attention back toward his domestic economic programs.

Washington wants to lift the arms embargo against Bosnia's Muslims and to bomb Bosnian Serbian targets, but European governments have refused to go along.

However, British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd did join the call Monday for U.S. infantry troops to join in peacekeeping efforts. "I think it would be welcome," Hurd said.

French President Francois Mitterrand and Lord David Owen of the European Community urged that last week.

In eastern Bosnia on Monday, U.N. military observers entered the besieged Muslim enclave of Zepa to discover widespread destruction and fewer than 50 uninjured people left out of about 40,000 residents and refugees who had been taking shelter there.

The reports were the first independent confirmation of claims by the Bosnian leadership in Sarajevo that Zepa was the target of a fierce Serbian artillery attack that began last week.

U.N. officials said 10 bodies were discovered in a mosque and that 200 wounded had been left behind by the masses who fled the Serbian onslaught.

by CNB