BOSNIAN GOVERNMENT REFUSES TO SIGN ICRC-DRAFTED POW AGREEMENT

SARAJEVO, Jan 9 (Hina) - The Bosnian government said on Monday it refused to sign an agreement on the release of prisoners of war drafted by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Amor Masovic, head of the Bosnian government commission for the exchange of POWs, told a press conference in Sarajevo that the Bosnian Serb side had delivered a list with the names of only 123 Bosnian citizens to be exchanged, which he described as "ridiculous." The Bosnian government kept files on 24,742 people who had gone missing or had been taken prisoner since the outbreak of war, and the list the Serbs delivered on Monday represented only 0.5 percent of the people being traced, he added. Masovic stressed that as many as 8,000 people from the former UN protected areas of Srebrenica and Zepa were registered as missing after Serb forces had overrun the enclaves in the summer of 1995. He added that 3,000 of them were being imprisoned while the fate of the rest was unknown. Even the names of the people who had been earlier confirmed to be held in Serb prisons were left out of the list presented on Monday, Masovic said. Bosnian Foreign Minister Muhamed Sacirbey said his government would not agree to signing the agreement until it was explained what had happened to the people included in previous lists. Otherwise it would mean than anyone could kill a prisoner of war and avoid responsibility, Sacirbey stressed. Serbs demanded on Monday that the Bosnian government release 725 people of whom, according to Masovic, 400 were being held in prisons on Bosnian army-controlled territory. (hina) vm mm 091650 MET jan 96