From: trh@jack.sns.com (Al Trh)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: News, 8 Jan (from Haluk)
Date: 10 Jan 1993 23:20:23 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
Reply-To: Turkish Cultural Program List <TRKNWS-L%USCVM.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU>
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Haluk DEMIRBAG <TEX5HAD@cms1.ucs.leeds.ac.uk>
 Tadzhikistan declares state of emergency in capital
 U.N. envoy tries to block U.S. meeting with Bosnian leader
 Subject: Tadzhikistan declares state of emergency in capital

        MOSCOW (UPI) -- Tadzhikistan's Communist-dominated government declared
 a state of emergency in the capital Dushanbe Thursday in an attempt to
 quell the civil war still smouldering in the republic, the Russian state
 news agency Itar-Tass said.
        The state of emergency decree, issued by the legislative leadership
 of the former Soviet republic, comes into force midnight Thursday and
 applies to Dushanbe and adjoining areas for an indefinite period.
        The authorities asked the Russian Army's 201st motorized division,
 stationed in Dushanbe since the Soviet era, to provide soldiers and
 heavy weapons to enforce the decree in the former Soviet republic.
        Separately, an explosion on the Tadzhik border with Afghanistan
 killed four people and wounded 14 others in a group of refugees
 returning to Tadzhikistan, the independent Interfax news agency said.
        A group of 33 people were crossing the frontier by agreement with
 Russian border guards near the village of Ishkashim, 210 miles southeast
 of Dushanbe in the Gorny Badakhshan region. The explosion occured when
 the group tried to circumvent the border checkpoint. Minefields are
 believed to dot the former Soviet border with Afghanistan.
        Tadzhikistan, a largely Persian-speaking republic, has been embroiled
 in a bloody civil war for much of this year that is believed to have
 killed hundreds and displaced tens of thousands of refugees.
        The tangled conflict in the ex-Soviet Union's poorest republic has
 been marked as much by ideology and religion as by clan affiliation.
        The Communist-dominated Tadzhik government came to power Dec. 10
 after toppling a short-lived coalition of Islamic and secular opposition
 parties.
        Thursday's state of the emergency followed efforts last month by pro-
 government forces to drive out Islamic rebels from strongholds in the
 south and east of the mountainous republic.
        Under the decree, a 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew is introduced for the
 capital region, and all strikes and public gatherings -- demonstrations,
 meetings, picketing, processions, sports and entertainment events -- are
 forbidden.
        Traffic in and out of Dushanbe is to be restricted, and the
 authorities will institute document checks and conduct searches.
        ``Such decisive measures are undertaken with the goal of quickly
 normalizing the situation, providing security to citizens, confiscating
 weapons from illegal armed groups and halting incidents of marauding,''
 said the decree, which was quoted by Itar-Tass.
        The decree appointed Interior Minister Yakubzhon Salimov commandant
 of Dushanbe and makes him responsible for enforcing the state of
 emergency.
        In a related move, the government said it had begun confiscating
 weapons the eastern Gorny Badakhshan region where support for the rebels
 is strong, Interfax said. There were also reports of food shortages and
 an increasing incidence of malnutrition in Gorny Badakhshan, notably in
 the poorly accessible Pamir mountains, Itar-Tass said.
 =========================================================================
 Subject: U.N. envoy tries to block U.S. meeting with Bosnian leader

        WASHINGTON (UPI) -- The U.N. special envoy for peace talks on the
 former Yugoslavia has asked President Bush and Secretary of State
 Lawrence Eagleburger not to meet with visiting Bosnian-Muslim leader
 Alija Izetbegovic.
        George Kenney, the former Yugoslav desk officer at the State
 Department who resigned last fall to protest the administration's
 efforts in halting the Balkan crisis, arranged sponsorship for
 Izetbegovic's visit through the Carnegie Endowment for International
 Peace.
        But U.N. envoy Cyrus Vance personally telephoned Eagleburger to
 request that neither he nor Bush meet with Izetbegovic, said Kenney, who
 is now a consultant to the Carnegie Endowment.
        State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, who declined to discuss
 Eagleburger's private telephone conversations, said the secretary of
 state will meet with Izetbegovic Friday.
        White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said there ``was no meeting on
 the schedule'' between Bush and Izetbegovic.
        What may be the final peace proposal to end the Balkan crisis is now
 on the table at negotiations in Geneva, which are in recess for one
 week, and Vance did not want Izetbegovic to pull back from his pledge to
 support it, Kenney said.
        Bosnian leaders have repeatedly asked the administration to lift the
 arms embargo on Bosnia-Herzegovina so they can defend themselves.
 Although Washington has so far refused, President-elect Bill Clinton has
 indicated that he might be willing to help.
        Kenney said Izetbegovic had also requested a meeting with Clinton or
 Warren Christopher, his pick for secretary of state.
        The Clinton administration's response to the request will be an
 important test of whether the president-elect will stand by his campaign
 rhetoric, Kenney said.
        ``This is perhaps the first test of Clinton foreign policy,'' Kenney
 said. ``How is he going to deal with a head of government he said during
 the campaign that he supported.''
        A Clinton spokesman in Washington said Leon Feurth, deputy national
 security transition leader, will meet with Izetbegovic Friday.
        Mark Ginsburg, Clinton's current national security spokesman, said
 ending the suffering in Bosnia-Herzegovina is a priority for the
 president-elect, who holds Belgrade responsible for the crisis.
        ``Clearly the human suffering in Bosnia is of grave concern to Gov.
 Clinton,'' Ginsburg said. ``Gov. Clinton is engaged in an intensified
 review to explore all options governing a future policy toward Belgrade.
 ''
 =========================================================================
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish