Hurd tries to end row with UN on Yugoslavia

THE Foreign Secretary, Douglas Hurd, flew at short notice to New York last night to patch up the deepening row between Britain and the United Nations Secretary- General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali over peace efforts in Bosnia. Mr Hurd was due to discuss a plan to allow the EC mediator, Lord Carrington, to gradually hand over the baton 'with dignity' to the UN, Western diplomatic sources said.

As the disarray among policymakers grew over Yugoslavia, it is evident that Mr Hurd and Mr Boutros-Ghali have opposing views on how to move forward. Mr Hurd came to the UN prepared to sacrifice Britain's leadership in the Yugoslav conference by inviting the UN to gradually take over Lord Carrington's role as the chief peacemaker. The British Foreign Secretary was due to discuss with the UN Secretary-General the establishment of a joint conference taking in the UN, the EC and the Yugoslav parties, which would allow Lord Carrington to 'hand over more and more bits and pieces', a Western diplomatic source said.

Mr Boutros-Ghali, however, is more interested in seeing the EC, the WEU and Nato perform what one of his aides described as the 'heavy lifting' in Yugoslavia - that is, providing military forces to the UN to do the dangerous work of peacekeeping on the ground. The UN peacekeeping operation 'is already stretched to the breaking point', he said in a report yesterday, while pointing out that 'only a handful' of countries have offered to keep military personnel on standby for UN duties. Britain has repeatedly stated that it will not provide ground forces for UN operations in the Balkans.

In a scathing report Mr Boutros-Ghali pointed out what he believes are the most glaring flaws of the recent London Agreement between the Bosnian factions. Not only had the ceasefire never come into effect, but fighting had intensified and, most crucially, none of the warring parties had told the UN where its heavy weapons were located.

Mr Boutros-Ghali's report, following on his hard-hitting letter to the Security Council on Monday, says it is not for a regional organisation such as the EC to undermine the primacy of the UN. Implicitly criticising Lord Carrington's handling of the peace conference, he went on to say it was 'most unusual' for the UN to be asked to help implement a politico-military agreement in whose negotiations it played no part. He was also irritated to find that the last London peace conference handed the UN extensive new responsibilities for supervising all heavy weapons in Bosnia, against the advice of senior UN officials.

His anger at the Western members of the Council has been aggravated by the body's refusal to send as few as 500 UN peacekeepers to Somalia, where about 300,000 people have been killed since warfare among militias broke out last November. Mr Boutros-Ghali has been under attack from African countries for failing to deliver peacekeepers in Somalia and in his frustration he has turned on the EC for making more demands on the UN.

By offering gradually to hand over the reins of the peace conference to the UN Mr Hurd hopes to ease the strain with Mr Boutros-Ghali. But short of an offer to provide the bulk of the forces needed to supervise heavy weapons in Yugoslavia, under the peace plan agreed in London, Mr Boutros-Ghali is not expected to welcome the new responsibilities at a time when the organisation is overstretched and under-funded.

Mr Hurd, who was on his way to an Asean summit in Manila, rescheduled his plans only yesterday morning to try to resolve the row. A Western source said 'part of Boutros' pique is that the EC is trying to boss him about, that it is getting uppity and telling him what to do. It isn't at all. Carrington has no wish to keep banging his head against this particular wall. He is just concerned that if the process starts again in a different forum, it should not undo the gains made so far.'

Comments by the French criticising Lord Carrington had also delayed the handover because it had made it impossible for him to bow out with dignity, the source added.

Western sources revealed that the row between Mr Boutros-Ghali and Lord Carrington began two weeks ago, when the latter visited New York to discuss co- operation between the UN and the EC. Mr Boutros-Ghali made it clear then that the twin track policy, supported by the British Government, of having the EC deal with the political side and the UN with the peacekeeping side, was too cumbersome in that the two could not be separated. 'Boutros sees it very much as the EC getting in the way on the political side,' a Western source said.

The wider conference would take in both the five permanent members of the Security Council and the Secretary-General's office, as well as other 'interested parties'. 'What we want to do is bring in the Americans and the Russians, but also other weighty players like the Germans. The problem now is how to find a formula to do that,' said a diplomatic source.