The council, in adopting resolution 838, asked for the report because council members, who have wanted to put U.N. observers along the borders as part of their overall effort to end the fierce fighting in the former Yugoslavia, are unsure if the plan is feasible or if new peacekeeping personnel will be available.
Monitors can only enter an area with the agreement of the government involved.
Council members so far have been unable to confirm that the Serbian government would allow monitors on its side of the border or that the Bosnian-Serbs would accept the monitors on the frontiers they control. Although the tighter sanctions closed Serbia's borders to the outside world, borders among the former Yugoslav republics have gone unchecked. 1hile Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic has said that arms and fuel shipments to the Bosnian-Serbs have stopped, intelligence reports indicate that the supplies continue. Sealing Bosnia's border with Serbia-Montenegro would be a constructive step in that direction. All the council members stressed that this latest move to increase the U.N. presence in Bosnia as well as tighten pressure on the Bosnia-Serbs is an interim step in the council's overall plan to stop the fighting and get a comprehensive political settlement.