U.S. Envoy Tries to Rescue Bosnia Talks : Balkans: Diplomat warns Muslims and Serbs to stop fighting and start negotiating. He sees ‘possibilities’ in the current climate.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina —  U.S. special envoy Charles Redman appealed to Bosnia’s warring factions Friday to accept a cease-fire and begin negotiations expected to result in an ethnic partitioning of the country.

The U.S. diplomat’s visit followed a week of contradictory signals from Washington about the United States’ willingness to use air power to halt the latest Bosnian Serb rebel offensive, which is disrupting negotiations aimed at ending the 2-year-old war.

Redman joined the U.N. commander for Bosnia, British Lt. Gen. Michael Rose, in warning Bosnia’s Muslims and Serbs that fighting should stop immediately if either expects Western assistance in working out an overall peace settlement and rebuilding war-ravaged cities such as Sarajevo.

Both Redman and Rose spoke of positive signs that a cease-fire could be reached soon but also cautioned that more time is needed to bring together the government and Serbian rebel commanders, who refused again Friday even to meet with each other.

Another round of shuttle diplomacy was set for today.

“We’re continuing the talks. They’re still going in a positive way,” Rose told reporters as he left a meeting with Bosnian government leaders and headed for a Bosnian Serb military base in nearby Lukavica.

Redman described the atmosphere as offering “some possibilities” but conceded that it might take a few days to explore them.

Bosnian Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic told reporters, “I don’t think there is an agreement yet.”

The Muslim-led government had agreed late Thursday to a 24-hour halt in fighting as a goodwill gesture while considering Rose’s plan for a permanent truce; Bosnian Serb military commander Gen. Ratko Mladic reciprocated by declaring that his forces would also hold fire.

While Serbian shelling of Gorazde appeared to have subsided somewhat Friday, there were later reports that it had resumed.

U.N. spokesman Rob Annink said fighting continued in many areas of Bosnia, and the situation in Gorazde remained “unstable and tense.”

Redman was dispatched to the Balkans to try to rescue the stumbling peace process after Clinton Administration critics and Bosnian government officials accused the United States of encouraging the Serbian assault on Gorazde by saying that no threat of North Atlantic Treaty Organization air strikes would be made to deter it.

Defense Secretary William J. Perry and Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have said such an intervention was not being contemplated.

But Secretary of State Warren Christopher and National Security Adviser Anthony Lake have since suggested that U.S. air power might be used to protect U.N. peacekeepers if they are deployed to protect Gorazde, one of six U.N. “safe areas.”

Sources involved in Redman’s talks here said he had come with a message that the Sarajevo government should resign itself to a restructured Bosnia that would include about half the former Yugoslav republic’s territory and give up the notion that more land could be recovered on the battlefield.

Serbs account for 31% of Bosnia’s population but claim the right to rule over all conquered land.