From: trh@jack.sns.com (Al Trh)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: News, 5 Jan 93 (from Haluk)
Date: 5 Jan 1993 23:44:02 -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

 : Peace mediators seeing Serbian leader Milosevic on Wednesday
 : Fighting ebbs in Bosnia as Sarajevo siege enters 10th month
 : British troops put on alert for Yugoslav intervention
 : Russian Parliament chief knocks Islamic fundamentalists
 : Karadzic says Serbs not to blame if peace talks break down
 : Turkey launches new probe into Cnernobyl disaster afteraffects

 Subject: Peace mediators seeing Serbian leader Milosevic on Wednesday

        GENEVA (UPI) -- The co-chairmen of the peace talks on the former
 Yugoslavia set out for Belgrade Tuesday to tell Serbian strongman
 Slobodan Milosevic that demands for a separate Serb state in Bosnia-
 Herzegovina makes a settlement impossible.
        That will be the first issue when Cyrus Vance for the U.N. and Lord
 David Owen for the European Community see Milosevic on Wednesday,
 spokesman Fred Eckhard told reporters.
        The talks with Milosevic had been expected to take place Tuesday but
 were put back because Owen first had to go to Copenhagen to brief the
 foreign minister of Denmark, which currently holds the EC presidency.
        ``On the quesdtion of a (Serbian) state within a state in Bosnia-
 Herzegovina, that is unacceptable to and non-negotiable for the co-
 chairmen,'' Eckhard said.
        ``There is no give on that issue,'' he said. ``So the question is,
 can the Serb side come around saufficiently to get an agreement.
        ``You don't have to be a fortuneteller to know that this is the first
 item that will come up tomorrow in Belgrade.''
        Eckhard said that while a political settlement in Bosnia was
 impossible without a change in the Bosnian Serb position, a military
 accord on cessation of hostilities was almost achieved in negotiations
 in Geneva Saturday to Monday.
        ``The only outstanding military issue'' is the withdrawal of heavy
 weapons to sites out of range which will be monitored by U.N. protection
 forces, he said.
        ``The feelig is that this is acceptable to the Serbs and that the
 government of of (Alija) Izetbegovic might just be convinced that this
 is the best solution,'' Eckhard said.
        ``This question of heavy weapons is on the verge of being resolved,''
 he said.
        Eckhard was far less upbeat about getting early agreement by all
 three parties (Bosnian Serbs, Croats and Muslims) to a new constitution,
 however.
        Bosnian Croat leader Mate Boban on Tuesday accepted and signed the
 political and military proposals made by Vance and Owen as well as a map
 dividing the former Yugoslav republic into 10 largely autonomous
 provinces but retaining a single state.
        Muslim leader and Bosnian president Izetbegovic accepted everything
 except the map on grounds it would give Serbs control over too much
 territory.
        Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic for his part rejected everything
 and maintained his demand for a division on ethnic lines with the Serbs
 having a state of their own -- one which he has often said would later be
 melded into Serbia itself.
        Showing the map to reeporters, Eckhard said that that argument was
 wrong and the Bosnian Serbs would have to ``roll back at least by 20
 percent'' from territory they currently control.
        ``So please no more crying for the Muslims,'' he said.
        Detailing travel plans, Eckhard said Owen flew to Copenhagen Tuesday
 afternoon and on Wednesday morning would fly with the Danish foreign
 minister -- who is to make a fact-finding tour -- to the Slovenian capital
 of Lbujlbana. Owen would then fly on to Belgrade in a U.N. aircraft,
 arriving at around 11 a.m. local time.
        Vance for his part was flying Tuesday evening to the Croatian capital
 of Zagreb together with Gen. Satish Nambiar, commander of U.N. forces.
 Vance would then continue to Belgrade but had nothing scheduled.
        After Owen's arrival Wednesday, the two men would see Serbian
 president Milosevic before and during lunch.
        A meeting was tentatively set for 3 p.m. with Yugoslav Federation
 president Dobrica Cosic, after which Vance and Owen would go to Zagreb
 to see Croatian president Franco Tudjman at 6 p.m. and then return to
 Geneva.
        Besides telling Milosevic that demands for a Serbian state within a
 state in Bosnia was unacceptable, Eckhard said, Vance and Owen would
 also raise the issue of the Serbian region of Kosovo where trhere is an
 Albanian ethnic majority.
        A Kosovo Albanian delegation saw Vance in Geneva Tuesday and warned
 that Serbia planned the same ``ethnic cleansing'' as in Bosnia and
 previously in a part of Croatia.
        Vance and Owen will ``urge restraint'' in Kosovo when they see
 Milosevic, Eckhard said.
        Negotiations between the leaders of the three Bosnian facxtions are
 scheduled to resume in Geneva next Sunday but officials concede that the
 peqace process will remain blocked if Karadzic continues to demand an
 independent Bosnian Serb state and reject any central goverfnment, even
 if weak.
 =========================================================================
 Subject: Fighting ebbs in Bosnia as Sarajevo siege enters 10th month

        SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (UPI) -- Combat eased Tuesday in Bosnia-
 Herzegovina as international mediators Cyrus Vance and Lord David Owen
 set out for Belgrade for talks with communist President Slobodan
 Milosevic of Serbia aimed at salvaging the latest round of peace
 negotiations, officials and news reports said.
        The estimated 380,000 residents and refugees trapped in shell-ruined
 Sarajevo began their 10th month under siege by Serbian forces bent on
 dividing the capital into ethnic districts as part of their drive to
 conquer a self-declared state in the former Yugoslav republic.
        The city was mostly calm, with only occassional gunfire and
 explosions shattering the stillness. Temperatures reached 12 degrees F.
        U.N. officials said they were persevering with efforts to restore
 electricity and water supplies to Sarajevo that were disrupted more than
 three weeks ago during heavy fighting.
        Elsewhere, news reports from all sides of the conflict spoke of a low
 level of combat.
        The official Yugoslav news agency, Tanjug, reported sporadic clashes
 in northern Bosnia-Herzegovina, but added that areas usually convulsed
 by heavy fighting were mostly calm.
        Sarajevo radio said fighting throughout Bosnia-Herzegovina had ebbed
 in the previous 24 hours, with many areas witnessing intermittent
 artillery and gunfire exchanges.
        The only major violence reported was between Serbian troops and
 Bosnian forces fighting to enlarge a pocket around the encircled eastern
 Muslim Slav-dominated town of Srebrenica.
        The easing in overall fighting came a day after Vance, a U.N. special
 envoy, and Owen, a European Community representative, adjourned until
 Sunday the latest session of the Geneva peace talks between leaders of
 the Muslim Slav-led Bosnian government and Serbian and nationalist
 Croatian forces.
        The negotiators agreed to give Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic
 time over Serbian Christmas, which is celebrated on Jan. 7 according to
 the Christian Orthodox calendar, for consultations at home.
        The decision was prompted by Karadzic's opposition to a peace plan
 proposed by Vance and Owen that rejected his demand for acceptance of
 the Serbian ``state'' that he proclaimed months before his Yugoslav
 army-equipped forces launched their conquest of an estimated 70 percent
 of the republic.
        Karadzic hopes eventually to join his ``state'' with Serbia under a
 policy orchestrated by his chief patron, Milosevic, who seeks to unite
 all Serbs in a ``Greater Serbia'' centered on his republic.
        Such a goal has been vehemently rejected by Vance and Owen, who
 scheduled talks and lunch in Belgrade on Wednesday with Milosevic in a
 bid to convince him to prevail on Karadzic to drop the demand for an
 ethnic carve up of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
        ``On the question of a (Serbian) state within a state in Bosnia-
 Herzegovina, that is unacceptable to and non-negotiable for the co-
 chairmen,'' Fred Eckhard, a spokesman for Vance and Owen, told reporters
 in Geneva.
        ``There is no give on that issue,'' he said. ``So the question is,
 can the Serb side come around saufficiently to get an agreement.
        ``You don't have to be a fortuneteller to know that this is the first
 item that will come up tomorrow in Belgrade,'' Eckhard said.
        But, Karadzic indicated there could be no compromise, telling the
 British Broadcasting Corp. in Geneva that the demand for a separate
 Serbian state ``must not be abandoned.''
        Vance was due to arrive in Belgrade on Tuesday evening, but had no
 engagements scheduled.
        Owen departed for Denmark, the new EC chair, to brief Danish Foreign
 Minister Uffe Ellemann-Jensen. He was to join Vance in Belgrade on
 Wednesday.
        There have been numerous warnings that the current round of Geneva
 talks, which began on Saturday, are a last chance to avert foreign
 military intervention to halt the war that has claimed hundreds of
 thousands of dead and injured and forced some 2 million people to flee
 their homes.
        The Vance-Owen plan would preserve Bosnia-Herzegovina as an
 independent state within its current borders.
        It would establish 10 largely autonomous provinces, make Sarajevo an
 ``open city,'' establish safe routes for civilians and supplies,
 establish a new cease-fire and require that all heavy weapons be placed
 under U.N. monitoring.
        Bosnian Croat leader Mate Boban agreed with all aspects of the
 proposal.
        Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, a Muslim Slav, agreed to
 everything except the map of the proposed provincial boundaries, saying
 it gave too much territory to the Serbs.
        Muslim Slavs constitute 1.9 million of of the country's 4.7 million
 people. Christian Orthodox Serbs comprise 1.4 million and Roman Catholic
 Croats 750,000.
 =========================================================================
 Subject: British troops put on alert for Yugoslav intervention

        LONDON (UPI) -- British troops and artillery are being prepared for
 possible involvement in the war in former Yugoslavia, news reports said
 Tuesday.
        A regiment of up to 600 men equipped with 105mm light artillery is
 expected to be sent to Bosnia-Herzegovina if the United Nations votes to
 enforce the ``no-fly'' zone, The Times reported.
        Royal Marines and six Royal Navy Sea King helicopters have also been
 withdrawn from a major annual amphibious winter training exercise in
 Norway.
        The six helicopters would be used to support the specialist troops.
        Defense sources told the newspaper that the marines had not been put
 on standby but were aware of the possibility of being sent to Bosnia-
 Herzegovina.
        The reinforcements would be used to protect the 2,400 British
 humanitarian aid troops from attack by the Serbs if the flight ban was
 enforced, the report said.
        ``We don't know which way this could go but reinforcements will be
 sent in whether for an evacuation or increased military action,'' a
 defense official told the Daily Mail.
        A Ministry of Defense spokesman confirmed the withdrawal from winter
 training but would not comment on British plans for Bosnia-Herzegovina.
        Force levels were being kept under review, the spokesman said.
        The latest moves by the British government comes two days after Prime
 Minister John Major said that if British troops in Bosnia-Herzegovina
 were in danger he would either bring them home or protect them.
        Leaders of the warring factions met in Geneva for a third day of
 negotiations Monday on a new peace plan that would divide Bosnia-
 Herzegovina into 10 autonomous regions.
        One more day of talks was scheduled for the latest attempt to end the
 conflict that was triggered when Serbian forces in late March set out to
 conquer an ``ethnically pure'' self-declared state in the former
 Yugoslav republic of Muslim Slavs, Christian Orthodox Serbs and Roman
 Catholic Croats.
 =========================================================================
 Subject: Russian Parliament chief knocks Islamic fundamentalists

        JERUSALEM (UPI) -- Ruslan Khasbolatov, the chairman of the Russian
 Parliament, said Tuesday that after spending several days in the Middle
 East he believed steps must be taken to insure that Islamic
 fundamentalists do not ``overcome the free world.''
        Khasbolatov, a secular Muslim, made the comments while visiting
 Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem's Old City before scheduled meetings with
 Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
        ``There are these fundamentalist tendencies and they should not be
 ignored,'' he told state-run Israel Radio outside the al-Aqsa mosque,
 Islam's third holiest site.
        ``Everything should be done so that fundamentalism does not overcome
 the free world,'' said Khasbolatov, who arrived in Jerusalem from Amman
 on Monday.
        Although he expressed the wish to pray at the mosque, Khasbolatov
 raised eyebrows with some minor gaffes, forgeting to take his shoes off
 as he entered the nearby Dome of the Rock, and putting out his pipe only
 after an Arab guard instructed him to do so.
        Khasbolatov, an economist and author of several academic texts, was
 to receive an honorary degree on Wednesday from Bar-Ilan University
 outside Tel Aviv.
 =========================================================================
 Subject: Karadzic says Serbs not to blame if peace talks break down

        LONDON (UPI) -- The European Community should be held reponsible for
 any collapse in the current round of the Geneva negotiations on ending
 the war in the former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bosnian
 Serb leader Radovan Karadzic contended Tuesday.
        ``If the peace talks fail then the European Community is going to be
 blamed,'' he told the British Broadcasting Corp.'s ``Breakfast News''
 from Geneva.
        Karadzic did not elaborate. But, he was almost certainly referring to
 a reversal by the EC in its position on a peace settlement.
        The EC originally sought to accomodate Karadzic's demand for the
 partition of Bosnia-Herzegovina into autonomous ethnic divisions,
 embodying that principle in an agreement signed in Lisbon, Portugal,
 last year.
        But, the 12-nation community abandoned that position when the Muslim
 Slav-led Bosnian government withdrew from the Lisbon agreement amid a
 deadlock between the warring factions over etrhnic boundaries.
        Karadzic has also previously condemned the EC for recognizing the
 independence of Bosnia-Herzegovina on April 6, which he blames as the
 trigger for the war.
        Speaking to the BBC, Karadzic reiterated that the Bosnian Serb goal
 of ripping an independent Serbian state out of Bosnia-Herzegovina ``must
 not be abandoned.''
        Tha position resulted in the suspension on Monday of the latest round
 of the U.N.-EC-sponsored Geneva peace talks.
        Karadzic admitted that if the negotiations broke down, his side would
 probably be viewed as responsible. But, he added that that view would be
 ``completely wrong.''
        Serbian forces have overrun virtually all of a self-declared state
 that Karadzic proclaimed on 70 percent of Bosnia-Herzegovina months
 before the war erupted. He seeks eventually to merge that territory with
 neighboring Serbia, the main sponsor of the Serbian land-grab.
        Asked if his forces would challenge military intervention by the West
 to end the conflict, Karadzic replied: ``If it happens that means the
 international community got involved in a civil war on the Muslim side
 trying to help the Muslims to make their own state in the center of
 Europe.
        ``That would be the first Islamic state in Europe and it is going to
 be a big headache for Europe,'' he said.
        The former psychiatrist was to return home Tuesday for consultations
 on the peace proposal presented at the Geneva talks by the co-chairmen,
 Cyrus Vance and Lord David Owen.
        Vance, the U.N. mediator, and Owen, the EC negotiator, said their
 plan to create 10 largely autonomous provinces in Bosnia-Herzegovina had
 been accepted by the republic's Croats and Muslim Slavs.
 =========================================================================
 Subject: Turkey launches new probe into Cnernobyl disaster afteraffects

        ANKARA, Turkey (UPI) -- Turkey has launched a new probe to determine
 the extent to which people along its Black Sea coast were affected by
 fallout from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, officials said
 Tuesday.
        The move followed reports in several leading newspapers of a sharp
 rise since 1986 in the number of cancer victims seeking treatment in
 state-owned hospitals along Turkey's Black Sea coast.
        Health Minister Yildirm Aktuna began a tour Tuesday of what officials
 call ``the areas of first-degree risk'' from Chernobyl nuclear fallout
 along the Black Sea coast, stretching from the Georgian border to the
 southern tip of Bulgaria.
        Officials said Aktuna's trip was the first step in a new study being
 launched into the afteraffects in Turkey of the Chernobyl disaster, and
 the minister would coordinate investigations being made in towns along
 the Black Sea coast.
        The accident, the worst in nuclear history, occurred in April 1986,
 when an explosion and fire in one of four reactors at Chernobyl, in what
 was then the Soviet Union, released a cloud of radioactive material into
 the atmosphere.
        Fallout was recorded in parts of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe,
 Scandinavia and Western Europe.
        Turkey's Black Sea coast also reportedly received fallout, but the
 extent was not fully reported at the time, and the Turkish Union of
 Doctors now says the government of then Prime Minister Turgut Ozal
 played down the risks the local people faced.
        Over the past year, Turkish newspapers have reported a sharp rise in
 the number of cases of cancer and other disabilities believed to have
 resulted from the Chernobyl nuclear fallout in the country's Black Sea
 coastal region.
        The reports, based on interviews with doctors in state hospitals
 along the Black Sea coast, said fallout victims included pregnant women
 who had miscarriages, stillborn babies and seriously deformed babies,
 the incidence of which has risen sharply since 1986.
        Doctors in the region claim they and their families were affected by
 the fallout, and the Turkish Union of Doctors has filed complaints in
 Turkish courts charging government officials with ``failure to take
 necessary precautions to protect public health.''
        Monday, Aktuna said a previous study showed that some 100,000 people
 in Turkey may have been affected by nuclear fallout after Chernobyl, but
 a more thorough probe was needed to get the true picture.
        The minister said a comprehensive list of victims in Turkey of the
 Chernobyl disaster was being drawn up, and his ministry would arrange
 for them to be treated at government expense.
        In addition to the Turkish Health Ministry probe, officials said the
 Council of Europe would make an independent study through the Joint
 Research Project for the Prevention of Natural and Technical Disasters
 and Their Afteraffects.
        A third study, in two regions of Turkey, will be carried out by the
 Turkish Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Health Ministry
 officials said.
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