BELGIUM: NATO TO SOUND OUT CROATIA ON PULLOUT PLAN.
Date: Feb 8, 1995
By Jonathan Clayton
BRUSSELS, Feb 8 (Reuter) - NATO, eager to put military hardware in place to oversee a possible pullout of peacekeepers from Bosnia, agreed on Wednesday to sound out Croatia on how it could assist any operation.
Alliances sources said NATO military planners wanted to make progress on establishing the required communications network, but ruled out any despatch of NATO ground forces at this stage.
"At this stage there are no troops involved," said one NATO source.
Croatian help would be needed if NATO were to organise the withdrawal of UNPROFOR (the United Nations Protection Force) from Bosnia, but the issue is closely linked with a threatened withdrawal of U.N. "blue helmets" from Croatia.
President Franjo Tudjman has said he will not renew a mandate for U.N. forces on his territory after March 31 and they will have to leave by the end of June. He argues that their presence merely cements a breakaway Serb state.
NATO and U.N. sources say it would not be possible for peacekeepers to stay in Bosnia without a presence in Croatia to provide essential back-up.
Croatia would also have to allow NATO troops and logistics experts onto its territory if the pullout from Bosnia were to take place.
The NATO mission to sound out the Croatian government will also try to encourage Tudjman to rethink his decision not to extend the existing mandate for UNPROFOR forces.
"The two things, pullout from Bosnia and any help from Croatia, are intimately linked with the withdrawal of peacekeepers from Croatia," said one NATO source.
NATO was asked last year to prepare plans to pull out U.N. forces from Bosnia. Fourteen member states, including Germany, said they would provide help, but the exact form this help would take has yet to be decided.
"So far, all we have are preliminary commitments," said a NATO source. He said NATO's Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, General George Joulwan, had since written to member states asking for more details of the help they could provide.
NATO is under growing pressure to firm up the plans in case Tudjman declines to yield to huge international pressure. U.N. officials also fear that fresh fighting could break out in Bosnia this spring.
Originally, the pullout plans were drawn up because of fears that the peacekeepers would be attacked by Serb forces and become embroiled in the Balkan conflict.
NATO sources again stressed final approval for the pullout plan, which could involve up to 45,000 troops, would not come for several more weeks and repeated the alliance's position that it hopes withdrawal never takes place.
"Our view is - like everybody's - that we hope this never becomes necessary. This is contingency planning," one source said.
NATO Secretary-General Willy Claes told a Belgian financial newspaper in an interview published on Wednesday that, if the alliance were asked, it would be able to carry out the withdrawal in what would be the biggest military operation ever launched in peacetime Europe.
Alliance sources said the operation would be under NATO command, but the exact structure still had to be agreed with the U.N. mission which includes several non-NATO countries.
There was also no agreement on who would pay for the operation, which could cost millions of dollars.
"Technically, it should be the United Nations because they are requested the operation, but -- they are broke," said a senior NATO diplomat. "NATO is not prepared to foot the bill, so?"
(c) Reuters Limited 1995. All rights reserved.
