Lead Bosnian Rescue, Pope Urges Clinton

OAKLAND â€”  Pope John Paul II on Thursday urged President Clinton to lead the Western allies in the rescue of the besieged Bosnians so “the Islamic world would not believe that the Christian world would abandon Muslims in the heart of Europe.â€�

Clinton, in an interview aboard Air Force One as he traveled to Oakland after a meeting with the pontiff in Denver, said he and the Pope agreed that a Western abdication on Bosnia would have “potential ramifications far beyond Bosnia-Herzegovina.�

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Warren Christopher began laying the groundwork in a round of telephone diplomacy from Washington for a possible meeting of the North Atlantic Council to consider final approval for air strikes against Bosnian Serbs.

In his talks with the President, the Pope raised the specter of an Islamic world further alienated from the West and of rising tension and violence in the Balkans, in the heavily Muslim former Soviet republics in Central Asia and the Middle East, Clinton said.

He said that the Pope urged him to make “a major push for peace, and a decent peace� in the former Yugoslav republics.

The President said he assured the Pope that the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are determined to halt and, if necessary, to punish Serbian aggression.

“We appear to have more capacity to move our allies than we did a few months ago,� Clinton said.

But at the same time, Clinton acknowledged that he had not yet achieved allied consensus on whether or when to employ air power to halt the Serbian siege of Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital.

He said with mild exasperation in his voice that U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali so far has declined “to at least generally approve some action.�

“We’re just going to have to watch this unfold,� Clinton said.

He added resignedly: “We’re doing the best we can.�

In Washington, Christopher placed calls to his counterparts in several European countries to convey Washington’s view that, as one official put it, “things are not getting better� in Sarajevo.

Although the State Department insisted that the allies still have not set a time or date for such a NATO session, U.S. officials said they are, as one put it, “working on the assumption that that’s going to happen� soon.

But the officials cautioned that no such session is likely for at least a few days, as the allies continue to watch the situation around Sarajevo for more evidence of Serbian intentions.

Under a plan endorsed by NATO Monday, the allies agreed to consider air strikes if the Serbs do not meet a series of conditions. However, the action would require approval from a second meeting of the North Atlantic Council, which is NATO’s top political coordinating body.

On Wednesday, Christopher had upped the ante by warning the Serbs that their continued occupation of two strategic mountains alone could trigger NATO air strikes. The Serbs’ position on the peaks gives them virtual control over the Bosnian capital.

Serbian leaders insisted Thursday that their troops have pulled back from the two mountains, Mt. Igman and Mt. Bjelasnica, but U.N. officials--and U.S. intelligence reports--asserted that thousands of Serb fighters remain.

Christopher said in a late-evening interview on Cable News Network that U.N. officials plan to send a survey team this morning to the two mountains to see whether the Serbs have withdrawn.

In a move that could further intensify pressure on the Serbs, the U.N. commander of operations in the former republics of Yugoslavia, French Gen. Jean Cot, publicly asked the United States to move a mobile army surgical hospital, staffed by 300 U.S. medical personnel, from its current location in Zagreb, Croatia, to Sarajevo.