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

DATE: FRIDAY, February 18, 1994                   TAG: 9402180161
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: SARAJEVO, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA                                LENGTH: Medium

BOSNIAN SERBS WITHDRAW

Bosnian Serb forces began Thursday what U.N. observers called a massive retreat from mountaintop artillery nests ringing Sarajevo, offering the first serious sign that they may comply with a NATO ultimatum to end their siege or face punitive air strikes.

U.N. officials reported large weapons convoys moving away For updated information, call InfoLine and enter code 2023. from the Bosnian capital, an apparent effort by the Serb rebels to comply with a week-old NATO order to withdraw or surrender all heavy weapons within 12 miles of the capital by 1 a.m. Monday.

"It is a very heartening sign," said Col. Bill Aikman, spokesman for the U.N. Protection Force in Bosnia. "Clearly, there's a major withdrawal going on."

Since NATO issued its ultimatum, fewer than three dozen of the Serbs' hundreds of heavy artillery pieces had been removed before Thursday.

But U.N. observers reported the dramatic increase in compliance efforts after Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic met with a senior Russian envoy and announced that his nationalist forces would meet the NATO demand.

The envoy, Vitaly Churkin, conveyed to Karadzic a promise from Russian President Boris Yeltsin to contribute Russian soldiers to any new peacekeeping duties in Sarajevo if the Serbs would withdraw their heavy weapons from around the city.

Churkin also urged them to turn over their artillery to U.N. forces "without delay."

The two men met at Pale, the Bosnian Serb stronghold southeast of Sarajevo.

Churkin said after the talks that the Serbs had agreed to withdraw their weapons. It was not clear whether that pledge resulted from the Russian offer or the looming threat of NATO attacks, but Yeltsin's government claimed credit.

Yeltsin's spokesman, Vyacheslav Kostikov, said in Moscow that the Russian offer and the positive response of the Serbs "make the NATO bombardments groundless." He told Russia's Interfax news agency that Yeltsin's plan "provides an opportunity to avoid an international conflict which could come about if the threat of air strikes materialized."

Churkin said he was certain the Serbs would retreat fully from Sarajevo.

"There will be no need for air strikes in Bosnia because there will be no objects to bomb," he said.

Russian leaders have consistently opposed NATO air attacks and complained about not being consulted before the ultimatum.

The United Nations' Aikman declined to specify what weapons were sighted in the evacuating convoys. Nor would he say where observers believed the weapons were being taken.

But he said that at the current pace, the Serb rebels could complete withdrawal from the exclusion zone within 36 hours - well ahead of the deadline set by NATO.

In Washington, President Clinton said NATO is determined to force compliance with its ultimatum, but he expressed hope that the crisis is easing. "I hope the air strikes will not be necessary, and they will not occur if the Serbs will comply," Clinton said.

Keywords:
INFOLINE

by CNB