NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/soc/culture/turkish/14925

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Subject: News, 23 Jan 93, Part 3. (from Haluk)
Date: 25 Jan 1993 04:20:43 -0600
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 -Three republics oppose CIS charter
 -Fighting erupts in region near Croatia's Adriatic coast

 Subject: Three republics oppose CIS charter

        MINSK, Belarus (UPI) -- A stormy summit of the presidents of the
 Commonwealth of Independent States ended Friday with only seven of the
 original 11 republics signing a charter that defines and strengthens the
 loose political alliance of former Soviet republics.
        Three republics -- Ukraine, Turkmenistan and Moldova -- refused to sign
 the C.I.S. charter.
        Seven republics backed the charter: Russia, Belarus, Armenia, and
 four Central Asian republics, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tadzhikistan and
 Uzbekistan.
        The 11th original member, Azerbaijan, has drifted away from the
 organization and only sent observers to the summit.
        However, in an effort to avoid the impression that the alliance is
 coming apart, the 10 republic leaders at the summit agreed to keep the
 charter open for future signing for one year so they could go home,
 consider it further and present it to their parliaments.
        Although only seven republics acted to cement their organization
 through the charter, the three recalcitrant members still consider
 themselves part of the C.I.S., still support the founding documents and
 the principles that brought them together after the collapse of the
 Soviet Union in December 1991.
        Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who fought for the charter, said the
 summit was markedf by ``rather tense debate.'' He stressed that when the
 C.I.S. was created only three republics were involved and the other
 eight joined later -- holding out the hope that alliance would find a way
 of bringing the republics together instead of unraveling.
        But Friday's when summit came to end, it looked a lot like a
 ``peaceful divorce'' was unfolding, in the words of Kazakhstan President
 Nursultsan Nazarbayev, who said, ``I was always for integration.''
        Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk's opposition to a charter binding
 the republics together was well-known. He opposed anything like a super-
 state resembling the defunct Soviet Union and his concerns could not be
 satisfied by C.I.S. charter supporters.
        ``The links that existed cannot be preseved,'' Kravchuk said.
        Even though he refused to sign the charter, Kravchuk warned against
 interpreting this as Ukraine bowing out of the alliance.
        ``The C.I.S. is working and we are all members of the C.I.S. actively
 contributing to its improvement,'' Kravchuk said, calling economic ties
 more important than the political accord represented by the charter.
        Despite the failure of all C.I.S. members to line up behind a
 binding, unifying charter, Yeltsin declared, ``We realize we can't live
 without each other.''
        The 27-page charter calls for C.I.S. coordinating bodies -- one of the
 principles that scared Kravchuk away out of fear that it might lead to a
 new central government -- such as a council of defense ministers to
 coordinate military policies.
        Yeltsin praised the C.I.S. for preventing chaos with the collapse of
 the Soviet nuclear state. However, Russia and Ukraine failed to patch up
 their latest dispute over their Soviet nuclear inheritance, with Ukraine
 going away saying it owned nuclear weapons left on its territory.
        But Belarus leader Stanislav Shushkevich announced, ``We have said
 that we consider the nuclear forces in Belarus to be the nuclear forces
 of the Russian Federation.''
        In an apparent slap at Ukraine, Shushkevich added, ``There exist
 other views on this matter.'' Kazakhstan, the other nuclear republic,
 joined Belarus in reaching agreement with Russia on the issue.
        On another military matter, five republics agreed to send troops to
 Tadzhikistan to join Russian soldiers already there to fortify the
 border against rampant gun smuggling from Afghanistan that threatens to
 reignite the Tadzhik civil war. But past votes to create a peacekeeping
 force never materialized.
        Another accomplishment of the summit was to create an interstate bank
 based in Moscow that would facilitate trade and payments between C.I.S.
 members whose close economic links were largely severed by the breakup
 of the Soviet Union and the collapse of their economies.
        The republics also agreed on a human rights declaration, which
 Uzbekistan had wanted removed from the agenda. That republic has been
 under fire for allegedly suppressing dissent.
        Despite the mixed outcome of the summit, Shushklevich said, ``I think
 the results are evident: state and government heads have never before
 met each other with such respect and understanding of each other's
 dignity. This is the main result of the Commonwealth.
        Kazakhstan President Nazarbayev tried to portray the charter vote in
 a better light. He noted that Azerbaijan had essentially taken itself
 out of the C.I.S. and that Moldova's Parliament had abstained from
 ratifying its membership, leaving nine republics to consider the charter
 and seven supporting it. The 12th republic of the Soviet Union at the
 time the country broke up, Georgia, never joined the C.I.S.
        Shushkevich, also shrugging off the charter vote, noted that all the
 republics -- those that signed and those that didn't -- had agreed to hold
 another summit in April in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, indicating
 their continued desire to work together.
        Initial concern that a partial charter agreement would lead to a
 breakup of the C.I.S. and spawn a separate alliance of Central Asian
 republics -- since the five Asian countries held their own get-together
 last month to create stronger economic ties -- never materialized.
        However, the summit's charter debate demonstrated that even though
 the shaky alliance is more or less sticking together, the former Soviet
 republics recognize that it may not continue as a homogenous
 organization. C.I.S. spokesman Yevgeny Gorelik said the leaders
 acknowledged that there can be several levels of participation: member,
 associate member and observer.
        Moreover, republics may go along with different parts of the accord.
 Belarus, for example, signed the charter but opposes a collective
 security accord that other C.I.S. members support.
        Nazarbayev said the charter supporters ``should be considered the
 integrators of the C.I.S.''
        Yeltsin said, ``There is a new consciousness of the need to preserve
 the entire range of ties, especially in the context of economic crisis.
 We have understood now that we cannot live without each other and that
 includes Russia, even though being such a big country it is less
 vulnerable. But it, too, cannot exist without Tadzhikistan, Ukraine,
 Belarus and any other republic of the C.I.S.''
 =========================================================================
 Subject: Fighting erupts in region near Croatia's Adriatic coast

        ZAGREB, Croatia (UPI) -- Croatian troops backed by tanks and artillery
 launched surprise attacks Friday against rebel Serbian forces near
 Croatia's central Adriatic coast, triggering the heaviest fighting in
 the former Yugoslav republic since the arrival of U.N. peacekeeping
 troops last spring.
        There were no reliable details on casualties from the daylong clashes
 that reportedly raged between Croat- and Serb-controlled areas of
 northern Dalmatia, as well as inside Serb-held territory.
        U.N. officials said Croatian units advanced in several locations and
 had taken over some U.N. checkpoints without harming U.N. peacekeeping
 troops.
        The fighting reportedly triggered an exodus of Serbian refugees from
 several villages.
        Cedric Thornberry, the deputy chief of the U.N. Protection Force, or
 UNPROFOR, said Cyrus Vance and Lord David Owen, the co-chairmen of the
 Geneva peace conference on former Yugoslavia, spoke with Croatian
 President Franjo Tudjman by telephone and obtained his agreement to stop
 the attacks.
        But he added, ``There was no sign of it taking affect.''
        The Tudjman government said the attacks were forced by Serbian
 refusals to negotiate on the reconstruction of a bridge in the frontline
 town of Maslenica that would allow the restoration of the main highway
 linking most of the economically vital Adriatic coast with the rest of
 Croatia.
        The Serbs ``appear to be determined to keep their occupied territory,
 '' said Croatian Deputy Prime Minister Ivan Milas.
        The bridge was destroyed during the seven-month war that erupted when
 Tudjman declared independence from former Yugoslavia in June 1991.
        Minority Serbian rebels and the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army overran
 some 35 percent of Croatia before Vance brokered a cease-fire beginning
 Jan. 3, 1992, as part ofa peace plan that led to the deployment
 beginning last spring of some 15,000 multinational UNPROFOR troops in
 Serb-held areas.
        Thornberry said the Tudjman regime informed U.N. officials that it
 had launched the attacks. ``They told us they want to secure the
 Maslenica bridge and the areas around it because they are exasperated
 with the Serbian delay regarding the reconstruction of the bridge,'' he
 said.
        But, he added that he felt U.N. officials had been close to a
 breakthrough on the issue, saying that in ``the last three or four
 weeks, we have seen what we think are signs that each side is really
 willing to negotiate.''
        The Croatian attacks prompted a declaration of a ``state of war'' in
 the region by the leadership of the so-called ``Republic of Serbian
 Krajina,'' the self-proclaimed state that rebel Serbs declared in the
 areas they conquered.
        The Krajina leadership also proclaimed a general mobilization in
 Serb-held parts of northern Dalmatia and sent a letter to the rump
 Yugoslav government in Belgrade reminding it that it had ``an
 obligation'' to provide ``military assistance,'' the official Yugoslav
 news agency Tanjug said.
        Thornberry said Serbian troops broke into a facility in Benkovac and
 withdrew tanks and artillery that were placed under U.N. observation as
 part of the Vance peace plan.
        UNPROFOR commander Gen. Satish Nambiar of India told U.N. Secretary-
 General Boutros Boutros-Ghali of the new crisis and met with Tudjman in
 Zagreb before the pair flew to Geneva for the resumption of the U.N.-
 European Community peace conference.
        Though the talks beginning Saturday were to concentrate on the
 conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the fighting in Croatia also was
 expected to come up.
        U.N. officials confirmed statements from the Krajina headquarters
 town of Knin that Croatian troops backed by tanks and artillery launched
 the attacks without warning at about 7:15 a.m. The strikes focused on
 Maslenica and the Serb-held former Yugoslav military and civilian
 airport at Zemunik near Zadar, 125 miles south of Zagreb.
        Croatian forces also sought to take the frontline Peruca hydroelectic
 dam complex, now under UNPROFOR control, near the port city of Split,
 the Knin statements said. The facility is the main source of drinking
 water and electricity for most of the coast.
        State-run Zagreb radio said Croatian forces sought to ``secure a
 passage'' to allow workers to build a pontoon bridge for the
 reconstruction of the Maslenica span.
        Serbian troops control the north side of the Maslenica inlet, while
 the southern bank is held by Croatian forces.
        U.N. officials said the fighting was the worst since the deployment
 beginning last spring of UNPROFOR and expressed deep fears that it could
 trigger clashes elsewhere in Croatia.
        ``It is not only serious in terms of bloodshed already taking place,
 but also because of the very serious message it conveys,'' Thornberry
 said. ``It is our belief that it is quite wrong for the Croats to have
 used unilateral means of war and the use of force.''
        ``It comes in the middle of very difficult negotiations which we have
 been laying the foundations for for months,'' he said.
        In Belgrade, President Dobrica Cosic of the rump Yugoslav union of
 Serbia and Montenegro sent a letter to the U.N. Security Council to
 protest the Croatian offensive. ``According to the first information,
 there are dead and wounded,'' said the letter, distributed by Tanjug.
        Milas contended that the reconstruction of the Maslenica bridge would
 have restored regular road traffic through Dalmatia as ``a sign of
 goodwill for implimentation of the Vance plan.''
        ``(The Serbs) have used UNPROFOR to maintain a cease-fire inside
 occupied territory and continue to plunder and destroy Croatian
 property,'' he said.
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