From: U15231@uicvm.uic.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bosna-herzgvna
Subject: Iranian President warns of Palestinian-type problem in Bosnia
Date: 16 Nov 92 01:05:35 GMT
Article-I.D.: uicvm.92320.190535U15231
Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago




        ATHENS, Greece (UPI) -- Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani
warned the West Friday not to allow the plight of Muslims in Bosnia-
Herzegovina to become another Palestinian problem on Europe's doorstep,
Tehran radio said.
        The Iranian president, who was addressing a Friday prayer
congregation in Tehran, said the West did not want a sovereign Muslim-
majority state to emerge in Eastern Europe and was turning a blind eye
to the massacre of Bosnian Muslims by Serbs.
        A Tehran radio broadcast monitored in Athens quoted him as saying:
``The Muslims of Iran support the innocent and defenseless Muslims of
Bosnia-Herzegovina.''
        He said, ``If the Western powers think they can create another
Palestine in Europe and the Balkans, they are making a serious mistake.''
        Rafsanjani's warning came a day after U.N. and European Community
negotiators Cyrus Vance and Lord David Owen ended a one-day visit to
Turkey, where they heard Turkish officials express strong views on the
treatment of Muslims in Bosnia.
        Both Iran and Turkey are seeking intervention by an Islamic force to
end the Serbian attacks on Bosnian Muslims.
        Rafsanjani said: ``What is happening in Bosnia-Herzegovina is
shameful, and if the West does not pay attention to this, the Bosnian
problem will become worse than the Palestinian.''
        Allowing the Muslims of Bosnia to become refugees ``will be a major
mistake for the West, because the history of this nation will not remain
hidden,'' he said.
        This time a Palestinian-type situation would develop on the doorstep
of the continent. ``This is Europe we are talking about. This is the
Balkans,'' he said.
        In Ankara earlier, Owen told the Turkish state television TRT that
the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegoivina should not be allowed to become one
between Muslims and Christians.
        He said pressure on Belgrade should be intensified, because Belgrade
bore most of the responsibility for the fighting in the former Yugoslav
state.
        Owen and Vance held discussions with Turkish Prime Minister Sulayman
Demirel and other officials during their stay in Ankara.
        A Turkish Foreign Ministry source said Demirel explaiend the Turkish
view to the two negotiators, and called for the use of force to end the
conflict, based on a plan drawn up earlier by Ankara.
        Demirel expressed fears that a continuation of the conflict may fuel
Islamic fundamentalist sentiments, and called for the arms embargo on
Bosnia to be lifted.
        Vance and Owen reportedly replied that lifting the arms embargo
``would deepen and widen the conflict,'' the Turkish source said.
        Earlier this year, Iran called for an Islamic force to be set up to
interverne in Bosnia on the side of the Muslims against the Serbs.
        Turkey, which has been in frequent consultation with Iran and
Pakistan on the conflict, has offered to send its troops to Bosnia to
assist the Muslims, and wants Turkish warplanes to be used, as part of a
NATO force, to bombard Serbian artillery positions.
        Neither plan has won support in the West, but last month Turkish
Foreign Minister Hikmet Cetin said the crisis in Bosnia would be raised
in the next ministerial meeting of the Islamic Conference Organization,
a grouping of 46 Muslim states.
        He said the ICO was expected to issue a strongly-worded statement on
the conflict at its next meeting.
        Two months ago, an Iranian transport plane ostensibly carrying relief
supplies to the Bosnian Muslims was found to have weapons and Islamic
revolutionary guards hidden on board.
        The United Nations asked Iran to explain the presence of the arms and
fighters on board the plane, but Rafsanjani, then on a visit to China,
publicly denied there was any truth in the report.