BRITAIN and its European allies were urged yesterday to follow the
controversial US lead and stop enforcing the arms embargo against the
Bosnian Muslims.
The call came in London from Bosnian Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic,
who said the embargo had brought ''nothing but death and misery''.
Nato chief Willy Claes flies to Washington this week for urgent
high-level talks on the American decision, which has dismayed the
Europeans, and which threatens to cause a damaging split within Nato.
Britain joined France in calling for an urgent meeting of the
five-nation Bosnia ''contact group'' -- made up of the two countries,
plus the US, Germany and Russia -- to discuss the crisis.
Senior officials from the group will meet in London on Thursday to
discuss the US move.
Britain and France have said they will pull their peacekeepers out of
former Yugoslavia if the arms embargo collapses.
Nato's military committee meets today in Brussels to consider how to
maintain the joint Nato-Western European Union blockade without US
support.
But Mr Silajdzic, on a visit to London, said: ''It is time to change
the course in Bosnia because appeasement did not work and we will ask
Britain, if possible, to reconsider its policy.
''The arms embargo was productive only in the numbers of people killed
and expelled -- 200,000 killed and 1.5 million expelled. It has brought
only death and misery and destruction.''
He likened the American move to its decision to enter the Second World
War and provide Britain with the ''tools'' to finish the job.
And he accused Europe of failing to respond to the genocide in Bosnia
by Serb forces.
''Neutrality amounts to complicity,'' he said. ''Our faith in the
future of Europe has been broken. That is why we think something must be
done.''
Mr Silajdzic also called on Britain to support the use of Nato air
strikes against Bosnian Serb forces attacking the enclave of Bihac.
Croatia warned it might intervene in the fighting if rebel Serbs in
Croatia continued shelling the area.
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