Washington, 24 September 1997 (RFE/RL) - A senior White House official says the Bosnian peace accord negotiated two years ago in the U.S. city of Dayton is succeeding and should not be abandoned.
Samuel Berger, U.S. President Bill Clinton's chief national security adviser, yesterday said the Clinton Administration rejects calls to scrap the peace agreement in favor of a partition of Bosnia among Muslims, Croats and Serbs.
Some members of the U.S. Congress have said Clinton risks losing Congressional support for U.S. participation in the NATO alliance peacekeeping force in Bosnia because of the instability there that the critics blame on the Dayton peace accord.
However, Berger told a Georgetown University audience in Washington that the Bosnian federation is intact, a ceasefire has endured and the country is beginning to be rebuilt. He says this is all because of Dayton. A partition, he says, would reward violence and aggression and lead to new wars.