http://www.yahoo.com/headlines/current/news/stories/bosnia.html (Einblicke ins Internet, 10/1995)
BELGRADE, Serbia (Reuter) - The United States has achieved a breakthrough in diplomatic efforts to end four years of war in the Balkans by arranging a face-to-face meeting next week of the foreign ministers of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia.
The U.S. triumph was the result of a risky twin-track strategy of shuttle talks coupled with an unprecedented NATO bombardment of Bosnian Serb forces to punish them for shelling Sarajevo and convince them to accept talks.
NATO interrupted its bombing operation on Friday, after flying more than 500 sorties since Wednesday, to allow the U.N. commander in former Yugoslavia, General Bernard Janvier, to meet Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic to try to persuade him to lift the siege of Sarajevo.
The U.S. announcement that the three ministers would meet in Geneva late next week was made simultaneously in Washington and Belgrade on Friday evening.
U.S. peace envoy Richard Holbrooke said the meeting in the Swiss city would be held under the auspices of the five-power Contact Group to start laying the groundwork for a summit deal to end four years of war in former Yugoslavia.
``We hope it will change the momentum of war to the momentum of peace,'' said Holbrooke, who has led frantic U.S. shuttle diplomacy to win support for his country's peace initiative.
President Clinton hailed the scheduling of a new round of Bosnia peace talks in Geneva as a ``positive step,'' but said much remained to be done.
The U.N. has demanded the Bosnian Serbs pull all their heavy weapons out of range of Sarajevo and stop threatening other ``safe areas'' as a condition for permanently ending the NATO military campaign against them.
Diplomats said Janvier would demand maximum concessions by the Serbs, including reopening of the Sarajevo airport and supply roads, known as ``blue routes,'' into the besieged city.
U.N. Rapid Reaction Force artillery on Friday destroyed a Serb missile site that opened up on a NATO plane.
British guns pounded the SAM-6 missile launcher with more than 90 rounds while French forces fired 24 155mm shells at a rocket being readied to fire at Sarajevo.