From: Guven.Guzeldere%STANFORD.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU (hq.ggg)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: News--15 dec
Date: 16 Dec 1992 01:42:22 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
Reply-To: Turkish Cultural Program List <TRKNWS-L%USCVM.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU>
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

12/14 U.N. RENEWS MANDATE OF PEACE FORCE IN CYPRUS

    UNITED NATIONS, Dec 14, Reuter - The Security Council
unanimously approved on Monday another six-month extension
of the U.N. Peace-keeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP), which
has been helping keep the peace between the island's ethnic
Greek and Turkish communities si12/14 TURKISH CITY CALM AFTER NIGHT OF HEAVY FIG
HTING WITH
KURDS

DIYARBAKIR, TURKEY (DEC. 14) DPA - Turkish security forces
brought the situation in the Turkish provincial city of
Diyarbakir under control Monday after a night of heavy
fighting with Kurdish guerrillas, reports said.
   It was unclear how many people died or were injured in
the fighting with rebels of the Workers' Party of Kurdistan
(PKK).
   The clashes erupted late Sunday when guerrillas attacked
the quarters of the police in the city with the fighting
spreading rapidly over various suburbs, the semi-official
Turkish Anadolu news agency reported.
   The army barracks, the water works and police vehicles
had come under fire. Diyarbakir is the headquarters of the
governor responsible for the 10 eastern and southeastern
Anatolian provinces.

12/13  TENSIONS MOUNT ALONG BORDER AS SERB TROOPS KILL ...

TIRANA, Albania (DEC. 13) UPI - Tensions mounted along the
border between Albania and Serbia Saturday after Yugoslav
troops shot and killed an Albanian shepherd, the second such
incident in two days, the Albanian Ministry of Defense said.
   Bajram Trazhaira was shot as he grazed his sheep 11 yards
inside Serbia, apparently unaware he had crossed the
unmarked border, said a spokesman for the ministry.
   The shooting happened only two days after another
shepherd was killed by border troops of the truncated
Yugoslav union of Serbia and Montenegro.
   The incident was a deliberate attempt "to create a
conflict between Albania and Yugoslavia," the spokesman
said.
   No information concerning the incidents could be obtained
in the Serbian capital of Belgrade.
   Both shepherds were killed at the border between Albania
and Serbia's tense province of Kosovo, where an estimated 2
million ethnic Albanians seek independence from Serbia,
ruled by the communist regime of President Slobodan
Milosevic.
   In a statement issued Saturday, the Albanian defense
ministry denied that the number of Albanian soldiers at the
border with Serbia and Montenegro had increased, as reported
by The Times in London.
   Instead, the statement accused the Serbs of increasing
their military presence in the border region.
   Meanwhile, Albanian Defense Minister Safet Zhulali held
talks Saturday with Levi Leepy, a senior U.S. Defense
Department official visiting the country.
   Earlier in the week, Lt. Gen. Ilia Vasho, the Albanian
chief of staff, visited NATO officials in the French city of
Strasbourg. Albania has been trying to strengthen its ties
with the organization and neighbors such as Italy, Turkey
and Greece.
   During the last five months U.S. military officials have
regularly visited Albania, and sources said the United
States has agreed to supply the Albanian army with military
telecommunications.
   The government has also put Albanian ports at the
disposal of Western warships in the Adriatic which are
enforcing the U.N. oil and trade embargos against the
Yugoslav federation.
   Albanian President Sali Berisha is scheduled to visit
NATO headquarters Dec. 16 at the invitation of Secretary-
General Manfred Woerner.

 12/15  U.N. ASKS NATO FOR THREE MILITARY PLANS FOR
YUGOSLAVIA

    By Evelyn Leopold
    UNITED NATIONS, Dec 15, Reuter - Secretary-General
Boutros Boutros-Ghali has asked NATO for access to
contigency plans for three possible military operations in
the former Yugoslavia should the Security Council authorise
them, U.N. officials and diplomats said on Tuesday.
    The operations include enforcement of a no-fly zone over
Bosnia-Herzegovina, the establishment of safe havens for
civilians in Bosnia and ways of preventing the war from
spilling over into Kosovo and Macedonia.
    In response, NATO Secretary-General Manfred Woerner sent
a letter agreeing to share plans with the United Nations
following a meeting on Monday with ambassadors from the 16
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation members.
    NATO members also asked its military planners to
formally draw up contingency plans for three operations, the
sources said.
    But diplomats cautioned that Boutros-Ghali's request was
a preliminary probe and did not mean automatic authorisation
by the council.
    "He is not asking NATO to enact plans but to share
intelligence with the United Nations," a U.N. source said,
adding this was part of his May proposals on peacekeeping to
expand the world organisation's military intelligence
network.
    "We have a lot of peacekeepers out there who would be
affected by any kind of action the Security Council decided
on," he added.
    Nevertheless, the request comes during a week of
mounting pressures for the West to take stronger action as
atrocities against civilians in Bosnia mounted.
    NATO has said it would be ready to take further action
if the United Nations asked. But any U.N. decision would
depend first on decisions by key Security Council members
who also belong to NATO, such as the United States, Britain
and France.
    Of the three possible future operations, enforcement of
the no-fly zone over Bosnia may be authorised next week.
    France has drafted a resolution authorising force
against Serbian or other military aircraft flying over
Bosnia. The United States is advocating a wider action which
would allow the bombing of Serb airfields, and Britain still
appears to have reservations on the entire operation.
    On creating safe havens, the Security Council has asked
Boutros-Ghali to investigate this option but he has not yet
reported back to the 15-member body or presented his own
recommendations.
    But the Security Council has authorised 700 peacekeepers
for Macedonia as a preventive measure should a conflict
break out between the Albanian-population area of Kosovo and
the rest of Serbia. Macedonia fears Albanians will then
cross their territory to aid their kinsmen in Kosovo.
    However no force has been sent to Kosovo. The United
Nations could not consider it without a request from the
Yugoslav government.

12/15 U.N.: Serbs Harassing Convoys

   GENEVA (AP) -- Serb militiamen and villagers have been
harassing relief convoys trying to reach the besieged
capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, a spokeswoman for the U.N.
High Commissioner for Refugees said Tuesday.
   "Out people are beginning to get nervous," spokeswoman
Sylvana Foa told reporters.
   A convoy of 10 trucks from Belgrade, capital of Serbia
and the shrunken Yugoslav federation, was repeatedly stopped
and searched Saturday by Serb militiamen in the town of Han
Pijesak, and warned not to proceed southwest to Sarajevo,
she said.
   The militiamen charged that the convoy, loaded with 110
metric tons of food, contained munitions, she said.
   "Finally we abandoned the attempt to get through," Ms.
Foa said. "While the trucks were turning around, staff
members escorting the convoy were verbally abused and
threatened with execution."
   Another convoy of 10 trucks tried Sunday but was stopped
by a hostile crowd in the Serb-controlled town of Sokolac on
the northeastern side of Sarajevo, she said. As the convoy
returned to Belgrade, a crowd in the town of Vlasenica threw
rocks.
   Ms. Foa said convoys were shot at three times last week
by snipers. The agency does not have enough bulletproof
vests for its staff and only three armored cars, all in
Sarajevo, she said.
   Despite the problems, the agency was able to deliver
4,656 metric tons of food into Bosnia-Herzegovina in the
past week.
   "That's out of a total need of 9,100," Ms. Foa said.
   All of the most recent deliveries have been overland. The
humanitarian airlift has been suspended since Dec. 1 because
of fighting around Sarajevo.
   Ms. Foa said the agency hoped the flights could resume
Wednesday.

 12/15 Bosnia Loses More Of Its Water

   SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) -- The Bosnian capital
descended deeper into the misery of early winter Tuesday
after artillery shells knocked out more of the water system
in fighting that ignored a truce accord.
   Pressures also increased in the international community
for tougher action against Bosnia's Serbs to stop the
bloodshed.
   European leaders fear the fighting might spread to other
ethnically tense areas in the states of former Yugoslavia
and perhaps elsewhere in the Balkans. Many people also have
been shocked by reports of Serb atrocities against Muslims
and by the suffering of civilians in the 9-month-old war.
   NATO officials said U.N. Secretary-General Boutros
Boutros-Ghali asked the United States and its NATO allies to
draw up plans for possible military intervention in Bosnia.
   Alliance spokesmen declined comment Tuesday. But one
source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the
request focused on having NATO warplanes enforce a U.N. ban
on flights by Serb military planes and helicopters over
Bosnia.
   In Stockholm, Sweden, foreign ministers of 51 European
and North American nations Tuesday urged the Security
Council to consider enforcing the "no fly" zone and lifting
the embargo on arms sales to Bosnia's Muslim-led government.
They also supported a war crimes tribunal to investigate
atrocities.
   Islamic nations have been demanding help for the Bosnian
government, which is fighting Serb militants who are armed
with weapons obtained by the federal Yugoslav army before
the U.N. Security Council imposed the arms embargo.
   Shelling continued in Sarajevo despite a renewed
commitment Sunday by Serbs, Croats and Muslims to honor a
November cease-fire accord.
   U.N. peacekeepers said talks were going poorly on a
proposal to establish "safe corridors" for refugees and
relief convoys to move in and out of Sarajevo, which has
been besieged by Serbs for eight months.
   Adding to the misery of a city with virtually no
electricity or heat, shelling Monday destroyed three
transformers that operate pumps at the Bacevo main water
pumping station.
   Sarajevo also is low on food because the U.N. aid airlift
has been suspended since Dec. 1 because of fighting around
the airport. Some food is arriving by land, but U.N.
officials in Geneva said Tuesday that Serb militiamen and
villagers were harassing and turning back some aid convoys.
   In what was an apparent effort to forestall tougher
international action on Bosnia, the leader of Bosnia's Serbs
said Monday that his self-styled parliament would meet
Thursday to declare an end to the war. Radovan Karadzic said
he hoped fighting would end by year's end.
   A Yugoslav peace conference sponsored by the United
Nations and European Community also is reconvening in Geneva
this week.
   NATO ministers, too, plan to consider the situation this
week. For the first time, NATO defense ministers said last
week that the alliance would consider military intervention
if asked by the Security Council.


To:  TRKNWS-L@USCVM