U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE DAILY PRESS BRIEFING (May 19, 1995)

From: hristu@arcadia.harvard.edu (Dimitrios Hristu)

Subject: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE DAILY PRESS BRIEFING (May 19, 1995)

[...]

TURKEY/GREECE

   Cyprus ...............................................12-13

[...]

FORMER YUGOSLAVIA

   Ambassador Frasure Talks in Belgrade .................19-22

   Fighting Update ......................................20

   UNPROFOR .............................................20

   Secretary Christopher/Secretary Hurd Discussions .....20

[...]

Q According to reports, a Greek senior diplomat from New York City dispatched recently to Athens a secret report disclosing, inter alia, that Under Secretary Holbrooke and his associates here at the Department of State are promoting actually the unilateral declaration of independence illegally declared by the Turkish-Cypriot state as a solution to the Cyprus problem for the creation of a configurated Cypriot state, 21 years after the Turkish invasion and occupation.

Could you please, once again, clarify the U.S. position, vis-a-vis to this specific issue?

MR. BURNS: Assistant Secretary Richard Holbrooke has been a prime mover in trying to increase the level of U.S. Government attention to our long-term effort to resolve the difficulties between the Turkish and Greek communities on Cyprus. He is in no way trying to encourage a unilateral declaration of independence by the Turkish republic of northern Cyprus.

We have two special negotiators involved in this. We have a very able Ambassador in Cyprus, whom you know quite well, who works on this problem. And Assistant Secretary Holbrooke has given it a lot of attention since he took office last year. We have respect for both communities. We are dealing on the basis of equality here in our diplomatic contacts with both communities. We're not encouraging any unilateral measures. We're encouraging mutual agreement by the communities to resolve the problems of Cyprus.

[...]

Q Could we go to Bosnia for a quick question. Anything new on the talks with Milosevic? There are some people who think that Mr. Holbrooke is there or headed that way.

MR. BURNS: I can assure you that Assistant Secretary Holbrooke is in Washington at the Department of State this morning. There have been sightings. I can also assure you that Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Ambassador Bob Frasure, is in Belgrade. He has been in Belgrade since, I believe, Monday morning. He has had a series of intensive, serious talks with the Serbian President, Mr. Milosevic.

Those talks are being held on behalf of the Contact Group which decided a week ago today that we should try again to see if we can convince Mr. Milosevic to accept the Contact Group offer of limited sanctions relief if Serbia recognizes Bosnia. That is the issue at play here.

If we felt that there was no chance of that happening, Ambassador Frasure wouldn't have spent five days in Belgrade. I have nothing to announce, though. I am not in a position even to describe the talks in any detail, because we're not in the business of doing that, and I wouldn't even lead you in the direction that we're making progress or we're not making progress. We're simply going to have to wait for them both to come down from the mountain and to see what emerges.

But it's a very serious effort by the United States on behalf of the Contact Group to make an attempt to achieve something quite substantial, because if this agreement is reached, Serbia would in fact be saying that Bosnia exists, that Bosnia should exist and will continue to exist. Therefore a very important leader in the Serbian community in the Balkans would have said that the dream of a greater Serbia must be quite limited and can't be as expansive as some of them would like to have it.

So these are important discussions, and they're ongoing. In Bosnia, in general, the fighting continues in Sarajevo. The United Nations continues its review of the mission of UNPROFOR, and the position of the United States remains quite clear. UNPROFOR's role must be strengthened. The ability of UNPROFOR and NATO to enforce the U.N. resolutions must be strengthened, and must be much more aggressive.

There have to be efforts to try to reimpose or rebuild a cease-fire in the area. Secretary Hurd was here two days ago for discussions with Secretary Christopher, and they had a long discussion of this. When Secretary Christopher goes to the NATO meetings at the end of the month, he'll look forward to discussions with the new French Foreign Minister, Mr. de Charette.

Q I understand you can't talk about the consultations in Belgrade, but how about the offer itself -- the Contact Group's offer. There's at least one publication that seems to think that has changed from recognizing Bosnia and its government to now just recognizing the territorial outline of Bosnia, but is that accurate?

MR. BURNS: It's a good question. Because Ambassador Frasure is currently engaged in the discussions, I just don't want to go into the detail of what the offer is or what the discussion around that offer has been. But as soon as he comes back, we'll be in a position to address that in more specific terms.

Q Can you say anything about to what extent sanctions would be lifted in exchange for Serbian recognition?

MR. BURNS: The Contact Group offer is for partial sanctions relief. What that means is suspension of certain types of sanctions. It is not an offer to lift sanctions, and Ambassador Frasure has been very clear about that.

Q What partial? What parts? How much?

MR. BURNS: Again, David, I think I'm going to just refrain from detailed comment until Ambassador Frasure returns.

Q There's give-and-take, then, in this. It's not -- you're indicating there's some negotiating --

MR. BURNS: I'm just saying that the Contact Group developed an offer which it confirmed at Frankfurt at the meeting a week ago today, and that offer has been made. But what I don't want to do is go into the details of the offer or through the conversation this week until Ambassador Frasure returns, because I have not been in a position to talk to him.

Q You're saying there has been a new offer developed. There was a new offer developed a week ago. This is not the old offer, which you indicated just a minute ago.

MR. BURNS: I'm saying there's an offer on the table, and I described the basic offer. I want to leave it at that.

Q Which was developed a week ago.

MR. BURNS: Which was confirmed a week ago. The offer in most respects resembles quite closely the offer that's been on the table for quite some time with Serbia.

Q And that offer included -- stipulates not only the boundaries of Bosnia, that is recognizing the existence of Bosnia, but he has to accept the map, too, right?

MR. BURNS: Mr. Milosevic has already accepted the Contact Group map and plan. I believe he did so in July 1994. That's not at issue here. What's at issue is whether or not Serbia will choose to recognize Bosnia, and that is an issue that we have been pressing for a long, long time, but quite intensively over the last couple of months.

Q Have you talked to the Croatians, Slovenia and the other republics? I mean, that was part of the whole package before. Is it now just Bosnia?

MR. BURNS: The offer is not -- well, the offer is focused on Bosnia, but we'll just have to wait until Ambassador Frasure gets back before I'm in a position or he's in a position to give you a complete rendition of what happened, and I hope that he'll be able to come back and say that he's made progress. But I just don't know at this time.

Q Can you tell us what the representative of the United States has taken to Belgrade or what -- the offer that he's taken? I mean --

MR. BURNS: Sid, I don't find it surprising that I'm unwilling to share the details of our negotiating posture with the Serbian Government. I don't find that surprising at all. Sometimes in the course of diplomatic negotiations we're ready to share with you lots of details and sometimes we're not, and this is the latter case.

These are very delicate, complex negotiations. We think that success has a better chance if we do not talk about the specifics in public, but rather reserve them to the private conversation. Since Ambassador Frasure has been in Belgrade all week and has not had a chance to report personally to the Secretary on this and we've not had a chance to talk by phone, I think it would irresponsible for me to get into the detail. I'm not the negotiator.

(The briefing concluded at 1:56 p.m.)

END