18 February Balkan Summit, Rome

Date: 22/02/1996

SERBIAN President Slobodan Milosevic, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic renewed their commitment to the peace agreement they signed in Dayton, Ohio last December. The emergency meeting, organised at 48 hours' notice to rescue a disintegrating peace process, was hailed as a success. Implementation of the accord was threatened when the Serb military leadership broke off contacts with the NATO peace implementation force (IFOR) because of its anger over the arrest of two Serb army officers sought by the international war crimes tribunal. Milosevic and his colleagues agreed that all contacts between Bosnian factions and IFOR should be restored. They also agreed to cooperate with the tribunal, but said suspected war criminals should be arrested only if already indicted by The Hague.

THE three presidents approved a plan to reunify the Bosnian capital Sarajevo on schedule, including handing over five Serb-held suburbs to the Croat-Muslim federation by 20 March. A multi-ethnic police force will guard the area, with the proportion of Serb and Muslim officers based on a 1991 city census. Sarajevo citizens, whatever their ethnic makeup, are to be treated equally. Serbs will be allowed to manage their own education, social welfare and health care, and use the Serbian language and the Cyrillic alphabet.

MILOSEVIC won a surprise concession from American negotiator Richard Holbrooke, who said the United States would agree to suspending United Nations sanctions against the Serbs. Most UN sanctions against former Yugoslavia were lifted during negotiations in Dayton, but retained against Bosnian Serbs to ensure they complied with the Dayton accord terms. The UN can suspend the remaining sanctions when IFOR reports that the Serbs have complied with the accord. Holbrooke said the sanctions would be reinstituted if the Serbs went back on their promises.

DURING the meeting, Italian Foreign Minister Susanna Agnelli and Holbrooke patched up relations. EU governments had been angry at Holbrooke for saying the EU was “caught napping” when US negotiators helped resolve a Greek-Turkish dispute over an Aegean islet.

IN a separate meeting, also held in Rome, the EU summoned the Croat and Muslim mayors of Mostar, the Bosnian city currently managed by EU Administrator Hans Koschnick, to give new impetus to faltering efforts to unify the town. Problems there have threatened relations with the Muslim-Croat federation. Koschnik may have to alter his plan on boundary share-outs, to shrink a zone designed to be jointly administered by the two ethnic groups.

ON behalf of its Union partners, the Italian presidency issued a statement reaffirming their confidence in Koschnick, who was attacked earlier this month when city residents rioted in protest over his plan to reunify the town divided into rival Muslim and Croat factions. The presidency statement reminded Bosnians and Croats that Koschnik's boundaries must be respected and called on the governments, particularly that of Croatia, to support the EU administration.