An agreement on Eastern Slavonia's reintegration in Croatia, barely averting a Croatian army blitzkrieg on the enclave, will stick only if Croatia and Serbia forge diplomatic relations in Paris, diplomats say. Serbian-Croatian rapprochement would end the ethnic schism that sundered Yugoslavia in 1991 when Zagreb seceded and Croatian Serbs seized almost a third of Croatia. Croatian President Franjo Tudjman hopes to strike a normalisation deal with Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in Paris. But Milosevic is keeping to silent, inscrutable form. Croatia craves Serbian recognition of its borders since this would firm up passages in the agreement left ambiguous at rebel insistence.
Diplomats say stakes are high.
Tudjman grudgingly approved the accord after being warned by U.S. officials that Croatia risked tough sanctions if he jeopardised peace in Bosnia with a new war next door. The deal calls for an international authority to demilitarise Eastern Slavonia and gradually reincorporate it as a province of Croatia by 1997. The United States plans to appoint a retired American general to head the transitional administration. But the arrangement has met with widespread scepticism and anger among Croats who were convinced their army could have settled the issue in days. Suspicions soared when Serbs loudly interpreted the vague text as a recipe for indefinite autonomy under U.N. patronage.