Yugoslavia Rejects Border Monitors

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina —  International efforts to isolate rebel Serbs suffered a setback Friday when Yugoslavia refused to accept the deployment of U.N. monitors to enforce a blockade on its borders with Bosnia.

The decision came ahead of an expected U.N. Security Council resolution to send about 500 inspectors to Serbia to ensure that it keeps its promise to cut off arms supplies to the Bosnian Serbs.

Yugoslavia, made up of Serbia and Montenegro, had asked for the border monitors, apparently hoping to win credibility with the international community. But Yugoslav President Dobrica Cosic, once a supporter of the plan, said Friday that it can “only put in jeopardy our sovereignty and our national dignity,” spokesman Dragoslav Rancic said.

The rejection was sure to complicate efforts by the United States, Russia and Europe to forge a common strategy on ending the conflict following the Bosnian Serb rejection of a U.N.-backed peace plan.

On the war front, U.N. officials reported a Serbian attack Friday on Brcko in northeastern Bosnia, where Serbs want to expand a corridor linking Serb-held lands in northern Bosnia.

Bosnian radio reported artillery attacks on Maglaj farther south near an important Serbian weapons depot.

In central Bosnia, clashes were reported between Muslim-led government and Bosnian Croat forces, former allies in the ethnic war with Bosnian Serbs that has left more than 150,000 people dead or missing in the past year.