Bosnia: Muslim nations press UK

MINISTERS representing 53 Islamic countries said after meeting the Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd, yesterday that air strikes should be made immediately on the Bosnian Serb forces controlling the heights above Sarajevo as a 'clear and concrete signal' to them to halt their aggression.

Nato warned earlier this week that the Serbs would be liable to suffer air strikes if they continued to prevent the delivery of humanitarian aid to 'safe areas' in Bosnia, including Sarajevo. A delegation from the Islamic Conference Organisation, which is visiting London, Paris and Geneva to press for a more vigorous response to the conflict, said any delay would encourage the Serbs.

'All the conditions for intervention have been fulfilled,' said the organisation's secretary-general, Hamid el- Gabid. 'Sarajevo is at the mercy of the Serbs, who are continuing their bombardment. What more is needed?'

A Foreign Office spokesman said air strikes had not been specifically mentioned during Mr Hurd's working lunch with Mr Gabid and the foreign ministers of Turkey, Pakistan, Tunisia and Senegal. The Foreign Secretary had promised the delegation that Britain remained committed to the humanitarian effort in Bosnia, and urged them to get Bosnian Muslim leaders to accept the peace plan being worked out in Geneva.

Abdul Sattar, the Pakistani Foreign Minister, said the three ethnic communities should have equal shares in Bosnia, a point the delegation would make in Geneva today to the international peace mediators, Lord Owen and Thorvald Stoltenberg. The proposals being discussed in Geneva departed from this principle, which had the backing of the Security Council.

Despite the frustration felt in Islamic countries at the carnage in the former Yugoslavia, and what Mr Sattar called the 'slow and inadequate response' of neighbouring countries, the delegation stressed that the responsibility for finding a solution lay with Europe. The Islamic world was not seeking to wage a 'holy war' in Bosnia, and based its initiative on broad humanitarian concerns, rather than sectarian ones. The troops contributed by Islamic Conference members - the United Nations Secretary- General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, has accepted offers from Pakistan, Jordan and Malaysia - would be under UN control, carrying out the international community's mandate.