Milosevic calls for ceasefire in Bosnia

BELGRADE - The Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic, yesterday called for an immediate ceasefire in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Speaking after talks with the head of the United Nations Protection Force (Unprofor) in Bosnia, General Philippe Morillon, he said he hoped the general and the head of the Bosnian Serb army, General Ratko Mladic, would be able to work out terms in Belgrade. The two were expected to meet today.

Meanwhile, Bosnian Serbs were reported yesterday to be poised to overrun the besieged Muslim enclaves of Srebrenica and Zepa in eastern Bosnia, triggering a refugee exodus and dealing a blow to the peace plan granting the area to Muslims.

Cedric Thornberry, deputy head of Unprofor, told a news conference in Belgrade that Srebrenica was under serious threat and could fall within days.

Bosnia's Muslim-controlled radio reported that Bosnian Serb forces had entered two villages near Srebrenica and pushed its defenders back several miles. Later it said Bosnian Muslim forces counter-attacked and pushed the Serbs back. None of the reports could be independently confirmed.

'There are clear indications that the Bosnian Serb army has not just strategic, but territorial ambitions in the whole area,' Mr Thornberry said. He added that this could have far-reaching political consequences because the area had been designated as an essentially Muslim province in a new map drafted by the UN mediators, Cyrus Vance and Lord Owen.

Unprofor officials in Sarajevo said refugees from Srebrenica had started streaming out of the town, heading mostly towards Tuzla. An Unprofor spokesman in the Croatian capital, Zagreb, said: 'There's been more shelling and we're seeing people fleeing Srebrenica.'