Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 8, 1994 TAG: 9402080103
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From Cox News Service and Associated Press reports
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Official NATO approval, expected Wednesday, would give U.N. forces protecting Sarajevo authority to order NATO air strikes on short notice.
That could dramatically change conditions for Serb gunners who have surrounded Sarajevo for nearly two years, shelling civilians, hospitals, schools and even bread lines with little fear of retaliation.
Monday was the first time the allies have agreed publicly to make NATO warplanes available for air strikes on short notice against the Serbs.
The Europeans had reportedly been reluctant to use air power, for fear that bombing Serb positions might provoke retaliatory attacks against the roughly 12,000 U.N. troops operating in Bosnia.
A top Russian diplomat said Monday that retaliatory air strikes in Bosnia could "cast a very dark shadow" on Russia's relations with the United States and the West.
The comments by Vitaly Churkin, a deputy foreign minister and President Boris Yeltsin's special envoy to former Yugoslavia, were among the harshest toward the West since the Soviet collapse in 1991.
Russian nationalists who scored surprise victories in December's parliamentary elections strongly oppose international efforts aimed against their Slavic brethren, the Serbians.
United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali requested the air strike authority by letter Sunday, the day after a mortar shell killed 68 civilians in a Sarajevo market.
Clinton, speaking Monday in Houston, said, "I very much welcome" Boutros-Ghali's request. "I have directed our representatives at NATO to support the secretary-general's request" when it is taken up in Brussels this week.
Clinton left the door open to retaliation. "Our government is talking with our allies about what steps ought to be taken in response, not only to this outrage, but to the possibility of future attacks on innocent civilians," Clinton said.
The North Atlantic Council, the governing core of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was expected to take up the matter Wednesday, amid growing signs that Saturday's market massacre had galvanized Western resolve to use force, if necessary, to end Serb attacks on Sarajevo.
Keywords:
INFOLINE
by CNB