Hurd to press US over Bosnia plan: Annika Savill, Diplomatic Editor, on the fraught beginning to a new transatlantic relationship

TODAY Britain will hold its first ministerial face-to-face talks with the Clinton administration. As Douglas Hurd, the Foreign Secretary, holds a private meeting with Les Aspin, the US Defense Secretary, on the sidelines of the annual Wehrkunde Conference on Security Policy outside Munich, the intractable issue of what the United States wants to do about Bosnia is likely to top the agenda.

Although President Bill Clinton yesterday made clear he expects changes to minimise what he sees as rewards for Serbian aggression, and hopes to enlist greater involvement by the Russians, British officials insist the new administration is slowly and reluctantly coming round to the general principles in the Vance-Owen plan for 10 ethnically- based Bosnian provinces. 'They're beginning to accept the broad-brush approach of the proposals - whether they come up with the changes themselves or say 'go away and do it again' is not clear yet,' said one British diplomat.

The determination not to accept the European plan wholesale is not only based on a desire to help the Bosnian Muslims. It also follows resentment among US officials who feel that they are being made to pay for a European failure to resolve the problem, that they are being railroaded at a fragile time of transition to avoid being spoilsports, and will then be required to provide the bulk of a massive deployment of peace-keepers without an enforcement mandate.

The grumbling expressed privately in the administration ranges from accusations that Lord Owen has called Warren Christopher, the new Secretary of State, a fool and is acting out of contempt for the Bosnian Muslim government, to claims that the plan will require the United States to contribute the lion's share of a ground troop commitment in six figures while the European sponsors take a back seat.

British officials say the total number of troops will be nowhere near the six figures cited in Washington, and the United Nations will probably settle on a Nato force of 60,000-80,000. That the US would have to contribute the majority of any Nato force is beyond doubt, however - while Britain has already signalled it may not contribute any further ground troops at all. 'It very much depends on what role we would have to play,' said a British diplomat. 'There is a lot of distance between endorsing the plan and sending troops, before there is a ceasefire in place.'

Further light will be shed on the question of peace-keeping figures next week when Marrack Goulding, the top UN peace-keeping official, attends a conference on the subject at Wilton Park, a Foreign Office think-tank.

Although the US policy review is still in progress, the British say the Americans have discarded 'some of their more extreme options' - military intervention to imposed a solution, air strikes against Serbian targets and a lifting of the arms embargo on Bosnian Muslims.

With a curious irony, some US officials now see the Vance-Owen plan as the 'extreme option' because of the large numbers of peace-keepers it would require, and say the British have not even been willing to discuss what they see as a 'middle option' - a lifting of the arms embargo on the Muslims.

Much might be made by some of another curious irony: the venue of today's Hurd-Aspen talks; for Bosnia's Foreign Minister was joined by at least one US congressman yesterday in likening the Vance-Owen plan to Chamberlain's appeasement at Munich.

'This is 1938 again,' Haris Silajdzic told a congressional panel in Washington. 'If we do not deal with it now we must deal with it later. Better now than later.' James Moran, a Republican, said Lord Owen 'seems to be playing the role of Neville Chamberlain'.

Mr Silajdzic said the international community should set a deadline for the impounding of heavy weapons. It the deadline is ignored, he said, air attacks should be launched against Serbian artillery positions. If the arms embargo against Bosnia were lifted, his people could defend themselves within two or three weeks, but Bosnia was ready to compromise on impounding everybody's weapons.

However, another sometime advocate of lifting the arms embargo, Klaus Kinkel, the German Foreign Minister, urged President Clinton at a meeting on Thursday to support the Vance-Owen plan. 'I underscored that it is the last chance we have to bring about a solution by peaceful means,' he said, adding 'I do not have the impression that the plan is being simply rejected, but there are certain hesitations.'

(Photograph omitted)