BILDT'S OFFICE CAUTIOUS ABOUT CHANGES IN BOSNIAN SERB LEADERSHIP

SARAJEVO, May 20 (Hina) - A spokesman for Carl Bidlt, the international community's high representative for Bosnia, on Monday expressed doubt that changes in the Bosnian Serb leadership would have any serious effect on the peace process in Bosnia. Last week, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic had replaced Serb premier Rajko Kasagic with Gojko Klickovic and on Saturday he announced that another hardliner, his deputy Biljana Plavsic, would fill in for him in contacts with the international community. We find Mrs Plavsic, who is supposed to fill in for Karadzic, to be an extreme hardliner and an ultrantionalist. By installing her, Karadzic is obviusly trying to preserve his influence, Bildt's spokesman, Column Murphy, told a press conference in Sarajevo on Monday. Murphy said that Bildt's office would cooperate with Plavsic and new premier Gojko Klickovic, who undoubtedly represented isolationist forces in the Serb leadership, because they were not on a list of persons indicted for war crimes. However, the international community would also continue contacts with ousted premier Kasagic and with all representatives of moderate political forces in the Serb entity, he added. Murphy said that during weekend talks in Pale, Bildt had won firm assurances from the Serb leadership that Karadzic would withdraw from public life. He added that Bildt's office would demand a special document to be signed as a confirmation of Karadzic's withdrawal. It would be a good sign if Karadzic's face and his funny hairstyle stopped appearing in public, UN spokesman Alexander Ivanko said. Ivanko called for caution in assessment of Bosnian Serb moves because experience from the four-year-long war in Bosnia showed that the Serb leadership could be little trusted, citing as an illustration 36 violated ceasefires. The announcement that in international contacts Karadzic would be replaced by Plavsic, the Sarajevo-based daily "Oslobodjenje" described as "first-class cynicism." "That woman, judging by her mental structure and racist ideas, could only be a good governor of a Nazi concentration camp," Oslobodjenje said in its Monday's editorial. (hina) vm jn 201549 MET may 96