SIGNATORIES TO BOSNIA AGREEMENT RESPONSIBLE FOR PEACE

SARAJEVO, Jan 11 (Hina) - About 80 percent of Serbs living in Sarajevo suburbs which are to revert to Bosnian government control under a peace agreement have already taken their valuable property to areas which will remain under Serb rule, a high UN official said on Thursday. Spanish ambassador Antonio Pedaya, the former head of the UNPROFOR mission and currently a UN coordinator in Bosnia- Herzegovina, told a press conference in Sarajevo that the situation in Serb-held suburbs was tense but that there were no signs of a mass exodus. The Serbs have taken their property only two kilometres away to Pale which means that they still haven't decided whether they want to leave or stay, Pedaya said. The international community wanted the Serbs to stay in their homes so that Sarajevo could be preserved as one of rare multi-ethnic islands left in Bosnia-Herzegovina, he added. But Pedaya warned that neither the NATO-led Implementation Force (IFOR) nor the UN police could be asked to create conditions for the preservation of Sarajevo as a multi-ethnic city. This is a peacekeeping operation and if it fails, parties which did not comply with the peace agreement would be to blame, he said. Pedaya described the recent abduction of Moslem civilians on access roads to Sarajevo as a glaring example of non-compliance with the agreement. Freedom of movement cannot be secured by IFOR or the UN civilian police but only by signatories to the agreement, he stressed, adding that the UN police would monitor, inform and train local police forces. According to information available to the UN, Bosnian Serbs were still holding five people they had abducted outside Sarajevo, he said. (hina) vm 112010 MET jan 96