Clinton Seeks Yeltsin’s Aid in Bosnia : Balkans: The U.S. President says he hopes to unveil his new policy in ‘a few days.’

WASHINGTON —  President Clinton said Friday that he wants to enlist Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin in a new effort to negotiate peace in the Balkans, and said he hopes to unveil a new U.S. policy for the area in “a few days.”

Secretary of State Warren Christopher and other Clinton aides met at the White House late Friday to continue working on the proposed U.S. initiative, but officials said they did not expect it to be ready before next week.

The proposal seeks a new set of peace talks aimed at producing a settlement more acceptable to the Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina than the current United Nations-sponsored plan, officials said. One option under discussion is the appointment of an American special envoy to negotiate with the factions in the divided republic, one official said.

Clinton told reporters at the White House: “If there is to be a diplomatic-political solution to this in the long run, we very much need President Yeltsin’s involvement and the support of Russia.”

“He (Yeltsin) reaffirmed to me, just a few days ago in our telephone conversation, his general support for the policy that we have outlined,” Clinton added. “But I’m sure you can understand why with a problem this difficult we would like a few days longer just to seriously review this, to come up with what our policy is going to be. Then we’ll announce it as clearly and forcefully and follow it as strongly as we possibly can.”

Yeltsin’s government, under pressure from Russian nationalists, has given verbal support to Serbia, while the United States and most European governments have blamed Serbia for trying to seize Bosnian territory.

Some U.S. officials have warned that Russian participation in negotiations over Bosnia might strengthen Serbia’s position in the face of demands that Serb forces withdraw from territory in neighboring republics.

At the same time, however, officials have noted that Russia might help bring Serbia into an agreement by using Moscow’s influence in Belgrade; they add that a settlement reached with Russian participation is more likely to work.

In any case, Clinton aides have grown increasingly worried that the Yugoslav crisis is creating a point of conflict between the United States and Russia; they want to bring Moscow into the process for the sake of U.S.-Russian relations.

In his remarks to reporters, Clinton also publicly explained for the first time his objections to the peace plan proposed by former Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance and former British Foreign Secretary Lord Owen.

“Our reluctance on the Vance-Owen proposals . . . is that the United States at the present time is reluctant to impose an agreement on the parties to which they do not agree, especially when the Bosnian Muslims might be left at a severe disadvantage if the agreement is not undertaken in good faith by the other parties and cannot be enforced externally,” he said.

The Vance-Owen plan would divide Bosnia into 10 provinces--three predominantly Muslim, three Serbian, three Croatian, and one mixed--under a weak central government. It would require Serb militias to withdraw from some of the territory from which they have driven Muslims and Croats through murder and terror.

The Bosnian Croats have agreed to the plan, but Bosnian Serbs and the Muslim-supported Bosnian government have rejected it. The government says the plan is unjust because it grants Serbs control over territory seized by force; Serbs complain the plan is unfair because it would require them to give up some land they now hold.

Vance and Owen met with Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic in New York on Friday, but failed to win his agreement.

“The Bosnian Serb delegation feels that the (Vance-Owen plan) map essentially gives everything away,” Fred Eckhard, a spokesman for the two mediators, told reporters at the United Nations. “They’re not happy with it.”

U.S. officials fear that even if the plan were adopted by all three sides, the well-armed Serbs would keep fighting for more land. Owen has proposed that the United States and other countries send troops to Bosnia to enforce the settlement, but U.S. officials consider that a mission impossible.

The Administration got some support Friday from the governments of Canada and Hungary, which borders both Serbia and Croatia.

“The Vance-Owen plan isn’t realistic,” said Gyula Kodolanyi, foreign policy adviser to Hungarian Prime Minister Jozsef Antall, after meeting with Clinton aides. “It depends on how many troops the U.N. is willing to put in to enforce it.”

Kodolanyi said he believes the Clinton Administration is “willing to act in a more resolute way. They are not satisfied with the European initiative, and they understand that America must take the initiative back.”

Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney said after meeting with Clinton: “There are inadequacies in it (the Vance-Owen plan) that can be corrected . . . by a greater degree of involvement by the United States.”