U.N. Call For Bosnia Troop Withdrawal Aimed at Serbs

WASHINGTON —  Showing obvious disdain for Serbian aggression, the U.N. Security Council unanimously passed a resolution Friday demanding the withdrawal of all outside troops from the former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The 15 members of the council issued no threats with their resolution. But, turning aside an earlier report from Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali that saw little use for U.N. peacekeeping troops in Bosnia, the council instructed him to study the possibility of sending a contingent there.

The resolution also told Boutros-Ghali to arrange some form of protection for humanitarian aid workers trying to transport supplies to besieged civilians in Sarajevo, the capital of the republic that declared its independence in March. This protection would ensure access to the airport at Sarajevo and protect supply lines that have been looted by soldiers.

The council voted as U.N. officials in Bosnia announced that warring units of Serbs, Croats and Muslims had agreed to a cease-fire. But cease-fires have been announced and broken often during the turmoil in the newly independent nations that have deserted the old Yugoslav federation. The last cease-fire, announced in Bosnia on Wednesday, held for just a day.

The council called on Croatian militias and the Yugoslav federal army to withdraw from Bosnia. But the resolution made it clear that it regarded the Serbs, who control the Yugoslav army and seem to be trying to carve a “Greater Serbia” out of parts of the former Yugoslav republics, as the main offenders. “Any change of borders by force is not acceptable,” the resolution said.

The resolution also demanded full cooperation with the 14,000 U.N. peacekeepers who are trying to take control of three Serbian-populated areas within the republic of Croatia from the Yugoslav army. These U.N. troops are also charged with disarming the irregular Serbian militias that have fought alongside the Serb-controlled federal army.

More than 1,300 people have died in Bosnia-Herzegovina since the Muslims and Croats there declared their independence in defiance of the Serbs who control what is left of Yugoslavia.

In some ways, the council’s resolution contradicted the findings of Boutros-Ghali, who, in his pessimistic report Wednesday, ruled out sending peacekeepers to Bosnia-Herzegovina and even questioned the value of the peace force in Croatia. He called the troops’ position there “already precarious.”

But, despite the strong wording of the resolution and its evident search for some way of showing U.N. concern and action, the Security Council did not reject the secretary general’s basic finding that peacekeepers cannot be sent to Bosnia until the fighting ends.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Margaret Tutwiler said the Bush Administration “unreservedly condemns and deplores this further Serbian and (Yugoslav army) aggression.”

She complained that supplies of food and medicine in Sarajevo are “desperately short to nonexistent.”

Times staff writer Norman Kempster in Washington contributed to this article.