Yugoslavs Agree to Consider Splitting Nation

SARAJEVO, Yugoslavia —  In this mountain resort where an act of violence led to the birth of Yugoslavia, leaders of the crisis-ridden federation agreed Friday to consider ways to grant the 72-year-old state a peaceful and dignified death.

At a closed session more remarkable for its absence of disaster than its accomplishments, presidents of the six fractious republics decided to appoint a committee to weigh the various options for Yugoslavia’s future, including a controlled breakup.

Among the panel’s tasks will be defining a legal procedure for secession by the republics, a position that appears to acknowledge determined moves toward independence already under way in the affluent northern republics of Slovenia and Croatia.

“At least, all the cards are on the table,” Croatian President Franjo Tudjman conceded after the daylong session.

Stipe Mesic, Croatia’s representative on the eight-man federal presidency, called the agreement “a first step forward.”

Although none of the participants claimed a breakthrough, and Serbian officials refused to comment at all, the decision to consider options other than salvaging the federation seemed to buy time and defuse tensions that have been raised to such a fever pitch as to threaten civil war.

Friday’s talks, outlined in a brief report by the Yugoslav news agency Tanjug, were the fifth among the republics’ presidents and federal leaders and the first that was not marred by walkouts, boycotts or steadfast refusal by individual republics to consider any proposal but their own.

The Tanjug statement noted that the six republics’ visions of Yugoslavia’s future “continue to remain different to a considerable degree.”

Regional leaders agreed to support a plan by federal Prime Minister Ante Markovic to keep the federation working, including joint defense, foreign and monetary policies aimed at assuring support from Western creditors and the International Monetary Fund.

Among the issues that must be resolved is how to divide jointly acquired burdens, like the $16-billion foreign debt.

At the center of Yugoslavia’s protracted controversy is Serbia’s demand that strong central rule be retained over a united federation, while Slovenia and Croatia want independence and freedom from the expense of subsidizing the less productive southern republics.

“We believe that no single option can satisfy all the republics,” Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic said.

Friday’s negotiations in this fog-shrouded capital of Bosnia-Hercegovina were steeped in symbolism, for it was in Sarajevo that a Serbian nationalist assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in 1914, touching off World War I and the collapse of imperial rule, which allowed the birth of Yugoslavia.

The republic and federal leaders gathered in the government guest house where the archduke’s body had been brought from the assassination scene. It has been memorialized by Yugoslavs as the site where their battle for freedom was finally won.

But, since a multinational kingdom was first patched together in 1918 from the war-torn fragments of Ottoman Turkey and Austria-Hungary, its unblendable mix of religions, languages, alphabets and cultures has prevented the emergence of a stable and united state. The nation became a federal republic in 1945.

Slovenia and Croatia earlier this week took the first steps toward formal secession by annulling federal laws and calling on other republics to endorse a plan that would split Yugoslavia into at least two sovereign nations.

The future envisioned by the north is of a Western-oriented European democracy with a market-based economy, with the former Turkish regions left to decide whether to band together in a smaller Balkan federation or to divide further along political and religious lines.

Four of the six republics chose democratic rule during last year’s multiparty elections, but Serbia and Montenegro endorsed their hard-line Communist leaderships.

Macedonia and Bosnia-Hercegovina both stand to lose territory if Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic makes good on a threat to expand his republic to include all ethnic Serbs if the federation unravels.

Although both republics would prefer continued federal rule, they have announced plans to form their own sovereign nations if the Yugoslavia of today should cease to exist.

Overlaying the political standoff is the palpable threat of ethnic violence, as Serbian media have whipped up a virulent anti-Croat campaign by alleging that the rival republic is plotting genocide.

The federal army, under the command of Communists who are predominantly Serbs, has issued an arrest warrant for Croatian Defense Minister Martin Spegelj, accusing him of planning an armed rebellion.

Any attempt to enforce that warrant could unleash fighting between Croatian reservists and federal forces, who reportedly have not been paid for weeks because of the republics’ refusal to continue financing a central authority.

Slovenian President Milan Kucan said that no headway was made in resolving the crucial economic issues separating the republics, and Bosnia’s Izetbegovic warned that, without financial stability, Yugoslavia was running the risk of social unrest that could degenerate into civil war.

In Washington, a White House official said that earlier this week the United States had begun a new round of diplomatic consultations with European nations to try to agree on a unified position designed “to avert violence” in Yugoslavia.

Officials have been “trying to discourage the Slovenians and Croats from precipitously breaking off,” one official said.

“We’re telling them . . . that, if they think there’s a soft landing, they’re mistaken” and that “Europe is not waiting to embrace” two new independent states in the Balkans, the official said.

The official said that the Administration has also been contacting Serbian officials to warn them that American support for maintaining Yugoslavia as a unified federation would vanish if the Communist-dominated Serbians initiate violence against the elected governments of Croatia and Slovenia.

However, officials concede that neither the Administration nor its European partners have been able to assert much leverage on the Yugoslavians.

Another meeting of republic and federal leaders is set for Friday in Belgrade.

Staff writer David Lauter in Washington contributed to this story.