U.S. AND BOSNIAN OFFICIALS COMMEMORATE DEATH OF U.S. DIPLOMATS

SARAJEVO, Aug 19 (Hina) - The United States reiterated on Tuesday that it would continue to insist on the complete implementation of the Dayton peace agreement in Bosnia-Herzegovina, stressing that all those thinking that some other solution was possible were deeply mistaken. Speaking at a memorial service on Mount Igman near Sarajevo, US special envoy Robert Gelbard relayed a message from President Bill Clinton that he firmly believed in the processes that had been initiated and that the goals set in the Dayton accords had to be achieved. A large number of US diplomats and Bosnian government officials gathered on a narrow mountain road, which had been Sarajevo's only link with the outside world during a four-your siege laid by breakaway Serb forces, to commemorate members of a US peace mission who had died there two years ago. Members of the US peace mission Robert Frasure, Joseph Kruzel and Nelson Drew, as well as two UN French peacekeepers, died on August 19, 1995 after their vehicle veered off the road and plunged down a cliff into a mine field. The mission, led by peace envoy Richard Holbrooke, was a part of preparations for a peace conference in Dayton, Ohio, which produced a peace agreement. Holbrooke had blamed the death of the three US diplomats on Serbs because their leader, Radovan Karadzic, and his top army commander, Ratko Mladic, did not allow any aircraft to land at Sarajevo airport. US charge d'affaires Robert Beecroft read a personal message from Holbrooke, which said that those who thought that the US would walk out of Bosnia-Herzegovina after all that had happened simply did not understand the American decisions and the American way of thinking. The credibility of the message was strengthened by the presence of NATO's chief commander in Europe, General Wesley Clark, who had witnessed the Igman tragedy, and the commander of the NATO-led peace Stabilisation Force (SFOR) in Bosnia- Herzegovina, General Eric Shinseki. A memorial plaque, reading "As a token of gratitude to the citizens of the United States of America who died on a peace mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina", was unveiled in the Igman forest. (hina) vm jn 191806 MET aug 97