From: trh@jack.sns.com (Al Trh)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: News, Dec 30 {from Haluk}
Date: 31 Dec 1992 11:43:34 -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

> From: Haluk DEMIRBAG <TEX5HAD@cms1.ucs.leeds.ac.uk>

 : Britain ready to consider military action in Yugoslav conflict
 : Yugoslav army prepares to fight against foreign military intervention
 : Bulgaria's Parliament approves government of experts {Ethnic Turkish..}
 : Japan to chair U.N. Security Council in January
 : Armenia says 18 dead in town shelled by Azerbaijan

 Subject: Britain ready to consider military action in Yugoslav conflict

        LONDON (UPI) -- Britain is ready to contemplate military action to end
 the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd
 said Wednesday.
        Writing in an article in The Daily Telegraph Hurd said the ``bloody-
 minded cruelty'' of the Serbs and the growing risk of wider conflict
 were raising the stakes in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
        Hurd said he still distrusted military action as a way to force a
 settlement but added: ``The Serbs should note a change. They have
 brought even those of us who hold that view to the point where we can
 imagine armed action against them to prevent a general Balkan war.''
        His warning comes after weeks of caution and bring Britain in line
 with Washington, which has threatened to use force against Serbia if it
 provokes conflict in the tense Kosovo province.
        In his half-page article Hurd said the sufferings in Bosnia-
 Herzegovina were the most vivid example of the new world disorder.
        Many options to end the war had been considered in recent months
 including economic and diplomatic pressure and some observers had called
 for the precision bombing of Serbian targets if an ultimatum were
 ignored.
        He said such an option sounded relatively easy but he knew of no
 country that had changed its policy because of it being bombed or
 rocketed.
        ``It was tried in Vietnam -- and failed. It was tried against Saddam
 Hussein and was not sufficient. It is unlikely to be effective against
 the Serbs, unless backed by action on the ground.
        ``Yet most governments and commentators usually rule out the use of
 troops to force a solution -- the Americans for political reasons, the
 Germans for legal, the French and British because painful history has
 taught us that it is easier to start such an expedition than to end it,''
 Hurd said.
        Such forms of pressure relied on resolutions of the U.N. Security
 Council and Russia.
        ``Six months ago these considerations looked decisive. But during
 these months the bloody-minded cruelty of the Serbs in Bosnia, and the
 growing risk of a wider conflict have raised the stakes,'' Hurd said.
        A way must also be found to enforce the ``no-fly'' zone in Bosnia-
 Herzegovina without endangering the humanitarian effort, he said.
        The zone was ``enforced to stop the Bosnian Serbs bombing Muslim
 towns. It has succeeded in that. There have been no combat missions in
 recent weeks.
        ``But there are illegal helicopter flights by the Serbs, probably
 carrying troops and supplies, and a lesser number of fixed wing flights
 by Croats. These violations are not militarily of huge importance, but
 they are, none the less, violations, and should be dealt with.''
        At the same time, the holes in the sanctions regime ``must be
 plugged,'' he said.
        ``We are now preparing a final round of new economic sanctions,
 aiming at the virtual isolation of Serbia if she does not radically
 change her policy. These are prosaic but necessary measures. Serbia
 could not live indefinitely in economic isolation,'' he said.

 Subject: Yugoslav army prepares to fight against foreign military intervention

        BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (UPI) -- The chief of the Yugoslav army Wednesday
 warned that the Serb-dominated army was prepared to oppose foreign
 military intervention against Serbian forces that have overrun large
 areas of newly independent Bosnia-Herzegovina.
        Col. Gen. Zivota Panic, the highest ranking Yugoslav military
 officer, also said that the army would return to neighboring Croatia if
 it tries to reclaim the self-declared Serbian state of Krajina,
 proclaimed on the 35 percent of the former Yugoslav republic siezed last
 year by Serbian forces.
        ``We will definitely not allow genocide and the destruction of the
 Serbian people in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Krajina. This is the most
 important thing at this moment,'' said a statement issued at a news
 conference by Panic.
        Panic's comments came amid increased calls for foreign intervention
 to halt the civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina that erupted in late March
 when Serbian forces set out to rip a self-declared state from the former
 Yugoslav republic of Muslim Slavs, Christian Orthodox Serbs and Roman
 Catholic Croats.
        ``The war would only spread in the event of (foreign) military
 intervention. Intervention would be a mistake,'' said Panic.
        It was the second time this month that Panic has said that the army
 of the rump Yugoslav union of Serbia and Montenegro would oppose foreign
 military intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina. But, his warning about
 Croatia was the first of its kind.
        Panic said that he viewed threats of foreign military intervention as
 part of a plan by ``some Western nations to extend their dominion over
 the territories of former Yugoslavia.''
        ``This is the final phase ... of the breaking up of the territorial
 integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, said Panic.
        Western diplomats viewed his comments as aimed at exploiting
 differences within the international community over policy toward former
 Yugoslavia and the wisdom of intervention in mountainous Bosnia-
 Herzegovina, which some states fear would bog Western forces down in a
 long and costly guerrilla war.
        On another issue, Panic critiziced the West for accusing the Yugoslav
 army of ``occupying'' Serbia's southern Kosovo Province, where the
 ethnic Albanian majority is demanding independence, and Muslim Slav-
 dominated region of Sandzak.
        Large contingents of troops and police have been deployed in both
 areas.
        ``This is a direct attack on the sovereignty of this country,'' said
 Panic, asserting that the Yugoslav army would be prepared to respond to
 ``any eventual aggression.''
        Panic was referring to a letter sent earlier this month by President
 Bush to him and communist President Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia in
 which the American leader warned that any attempt to ignite an ethnic
 conflict in Kosovo would prompt foreign military intervention.
        Western governments fear that a conflict in Kosovo could spread to
 the ethnic Albanian community in neighboring Macedonia, and then drag in
 Albania, Greece and Turkey.
        Panic, no relation of ousted prime minister Milan Panic, stressed
 that the Yugoslav army is in a state of high alert.
        He added that the West has ``overlooked the determination'' of Serbs
 and Montenegrins, who now constitute the new Yugoslav union, to defend
 their homeland ``as in past wars.''
        Panic said that the army is currently in the process of reorganizing
 amid the chaos caused by the breakup of former Yugoslavia and the
 conflicts in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia.
        ``In comparison to former Yugoslavia, Serbia and Montenegro are able
 to produce 48 percent of the country's military equipment needs,'' said
 Panic.
        His statement also revealed new figures for Yugoslavia's standing
 army, which it said was currently at 600,000 men. The force could be
 expanded to about 2 million soldiers in the event of full-scale
 mobilization.

 Subject: Bulgaria's Parliament approves government of experts

        SOFIA, Bulgaria (UPI) -- The Bulgarian Parliament elected 67-year-old
 economics professor Luben Berov prime minister Wednesday and approved a
 Cabinet made up mostly of obscure technocrats.
        Berov, who is not affiliated with a political party, was nominated
 for the post by the Movement For Rights and Freedoms (MRF), an ethnic
 Turkish grouping which, with 24 seats, is the smallest of the three
 parties in Parliament.
        The MRF used its constitutional mandate to form a government after
 the majority Union of Democratic Forces (UDF) and the former communist
 Bulgarian Socialist Party failed in their attempts.
        In a secret ballot, the new government was elected on a 124-25 vote.
        Leaders of the UDF's parliamentary delegation had said their members
 would not take part in the vote, but apparently some ignored threatened
 dismissal from the party to support Berov and his Cabinet.
        UDF leaders called the government ``neo-communist'' and said they
 would oppose it with all means at their disposal.
        The new government is made up primarily of technocrats, most of them
 unknown to the public. None of the Cabinet members represent any
 particular political party with the exception of the deputy prime
 minister, Evgeni Matinchev, 53, who, although Bulgarian-born, is a
 leading MRF figure.
        Matinchev will also serve as minister of labor and social welfare.
        Berov will have two other deputies, Valentin Karabashev, 32, who will
 also be minister of trade, and Neicho Neev, 44.
        Rumen Bikov, 35, the industry minister in the previous government who
 was expelled from the UDF coalition, will keep his post.
        The post of foreign affairs minister is expected to go to Slavi
 Pashovski, who currently is Bulgaria's permanent representative to the
 United Nations. He will be approved separately as he could not
 immediately return from New York. In the meantime, Berov was to handle
 foreign affairs.
        The Defense Ministry will be headed by the civilian Valentin
 Alexandrov, 46, who served as permanent secretary under the previous
 minister.
        Victor Mihailov, 48, the current director of the National Police
 Department, will be interior minister and also control the
 counterintelligence service.
        The Ministry of Justice will be headed by law professor Mihail
 Valtchev, 73.
        Before the vote, Berov said one advantage of the new government would
 be its non-partisanship.
        Nevertheless, the new prime minister stressed his government would
 implement the main points of the UDF program in order to move Bulgaria
 toward a democratic state with a market economy.
        Berov criticized the previous government for failing to implement a
 privatization policy. No enterprise had been privatized since the UDF
 won elections and formed its government in October 1991.
        ``This government will focus its attention on privitization,'' Berov
 said.
        Other primary concerns of the government as outlined by Berov will be
 reducing inflation, which exceeded 80 percent this year, and
 unemployment -- close to 15 percent of the workforce.
        ``For too long we have been asking for too many sacrifices from the
 same people,'' Berov said, referring to the desperate situation of the
 country's 2.4 million pensioners, subsisting on an average monthly
 pension of $40.
        The new prime minister pledged to increase pensions and distribute
 the economic hardships more evenly through a new tax system.
        Berov said his government would work closely with the IMF and the
 World Bank in its efforts to restructure the country's economy.
        Another priority would be negotiations with Bulgaria's creditors
 about a settling foreign debts, which exceed $11 billion, he said.

 Subject: Japan to chair U.N. Security Council in January

        TOKYO (UPI) -- Japan will chair the United Nations Security Council
 during January in a period of uncertainty and conflict, government
 officials said Wednesday.
        It is Japan's first chairmanship during its current two-year term as
 a non-permanent member.
        The Security Council seats five permanent members -- the United
 States, China, Britain, France and Russia, and 10 non-permanent members.
        Chairmanship of the Security Council rotates among the 15 members on
 a one-month basis.
        Japan will take the chair at a time when deliberations are continuing
 on the how to end the violence in Yugoslavia, restore stability to
 Somalia and order to Cambodia.
        The need to designate replacements for U.S.-led multi-national forces
 in Somalia may come up in January, the Kyodo News Service said.
        On the U.N.-sponsored peace effort in Cambodia, some council members
 may demand sanctions against the Khmer Rouge, a guerrilla group under
 the leadership of the deposed leader Pol Pot that killed more than 1
 million Cambodians in the late 1970s.
        The Khmer Rouge refused to join the U.N.-guided peace process in
 Cambodia that began with the signing of a peace accord in Paris with
 three other poltical groups in October, 1991.
        The guerrilla group has repeatedly detained U.N. peacekeeping
 personnel recently.
        The Security Council also faces other problems, including the
 deportations from Israel of over 400 Palestinians, and the planned
 dispatch of U.N. peacekeeping forces to Macedonia in former Yugolslavia,
 the government said.

 Subject: Armenia says 18 dead in town shelled by Azerbaijan

        MOSCOW (UPI) -- Armenia accused Azerbaijan of shelling towns inside
 its borders for the second day Wednesday, killing 18 people in the
 northeast of the republic, the Russian state news agency Itar-Tass said.
        Azerbaijan said its forces had repulsed an Armenian attack across its
 borders in the same area, destroying four Armenian artillery pieces and
 other armor in fierce fighting.
        Azerbaijan acknowledged that it had attacked the town of Idzhevan, 16
 miles inside Armenia in the northeast of the republic, in order to
 ``destroy Armenian strongholds,'' Itar-Tass said, quoting sources at the
 Azerbaijani Defense Ministry.
        Idzhevan came under air and artillery attack Tuesday, leaving 18
 people dead and considerable property damaged, the local Armenpress
 agency said.
        The town of Krasnoselsk near the border between the two states came
 under rocket fire Wednesday, a spokesman for the Armenian Defense
 Ministry told Itar-Tass.
        Turkic Muslim Azerbaijan and Christian Armenia have been fighting an
 undeclared war for four years over the disputed territory of Nagorno
 Karabakh, a mountainous enclave inside Azerbaijan that is populated by
 Armenians. Until this year the fighting, which has killed over 2,000
 people, had mainly been confined to Nagorno Karabakh itself.
        But since spring the conflict has gradually spread to the border
 regions between the two Caucasian republics, and heavier weapons
 inherited from the breakup of the Soviet army have been brought to bear
 on both sides.
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