YUGOSLAVIA: United Nations May Allow Gas for Belgrade

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 10 1995 (IPS) - The United Nations is poised to exempt natural gas from the U.N. trade embargo imposed against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) at the outset of the war in Bosnia.

Members of the U.N. Security Council — including the United States, Britain and Russia — have agreed to allow Yugoslavia and its ally, the Bosnian Serbs, to receive an “unlimited amount” of natural gas over the next two months to cope with the Balkan winter.

The U.N. Sanctions Committee, a 15-member panel that shares the same membership as the Security Council, has already tentatively agreed to the proposal, sources tell IPS. The committee is ready to approve the proposal formally Friday, they say.

The natural gas supplies would not be monitored by the United Nations for those two months. But one senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the United Nations would check after the two-month period that the gas supplies were only used for home heating and other humanitarian purposes.

The gas will be provided by the Russian company Gazprom, which also tried to deliver natural gas to Serbia and its allies last winter. That deal was approved by the Security Council last February, but fell through when Russian officials failed to meet with the World Health Organisation (WHO) to decide how the humanitarian supplies would be monitored.

The decision could mark the first time that the United Nations actually sends gas to the FRY since the Council slapped a full trade embargo against the rump Yugoslav republic in 1992. But U.N. diplomats denied there was a major change in Yugoslav sanctions or that the deal posed any precedent for one.

“This is not a lifting, a partial lifting or a partial suspension of international sanctions,” said Jamie Rubin, U.S. spokesman at the United Nations. “This is solely for humanitarian purposes.”

Ambassador John Weston of Britain added that the Council would continue to consider steps for the Yugoslav parties to deal with the harsh environment as the winter worsens. But he also denied that any major deal was struck with the Serbs.

U.S. State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said the deal had been struck after Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic and Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic agreed on an arrangement to provide heat to both their communities as winter begins. Both presidents, and Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, are engaged in U.S.-brokered peace talks in Dayton, Ohio.

The deal between the presidents, Burns said, is intended both to provide some relief to the Serbs and to ensure a regular, continual flow of gas to the embattled Bosnian government side, especially in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo.

Sarajevans have faced problems receiving gas as besieging Bosnian Serb forces tap or cut off their gas pipelines to the outside world, he noted.

“Most of the homes in Sarajevo are not supplied with natural gas on a daily basis, (but) it’s kind of on an odd basis, one day on and one day off,” Burns said. “And in the wintertime, those are really insufferable conditions that have caused great hardship for average people.”

The senior U.S. official added that “one of the purposes to this is to ensure that (gas) will continue to flow into Sarajevo,” without obstruction by the Bosnian Serbs.

Still, the deal is a significant reward to Milosevic and the Bosnian Serbs, who are blamed for the bulk of the atrocities in Bosnia, only two weeks after the Dayton talks began. U.N. officials say that, if the deal goes through without any problems, it could well be extended beyond two months.

That in turn means that Milosevic can point to a significant easing of the U.N. embargo against the FRY just before winter moves into its harshest phase. Moreover, the U.S. official said, the U.N. Sanctions Committee also is ready to consider other humanitarian gestures — including allowing imports of heating oil, liquefied gas and crude oil.

So far, however, Washington does not support allowing crude oil imports, since they can easily be used for military means, he said.

U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher is planning to meet all the leaders in Dayton Friday, Burns added. But he noted, “We are not anticipating a final agreement…I think that’s still sometime in the distance.”