Word: balkans
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...Aided by Croatian military victories in early August and a powerful NATO air assault several weeks later, the American mission convinced the Serbs that time was finally working against them. The result was the Dayton conference where after weeks of secluded talks and intense American pressure, the three Balkan presidents managed to agree on a compromise settlement...
...PEACE WAS AT HAND, WHY DID ITS makers look so somber? The three Balkan Presidents were pale and hollow-eyed as they gathered behind the diplomatic table at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, last week. When Alija Izetbegovic of Bosnia and Herzegovina walked to his chair, he focused his gaze downward and barely touched the proffered hands of his counterparts, Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia and Franjo Tudjman of Croatia. As the three leaders initialed the stacks of documents that would end the 44-month war among these South Slavs, each gave the impression he was sitting behind...
...Dayton, the biggest task was to convince the Presidents they had common interests. The U.S. negotiators and their colleagues from Britain, France, Germany and Russia tended to use very forceful persuasion. Some of the Balkan officials suspected the U.S. was using sleep-deprivation as a negotiating tool. Deadlines slipped repeatedly, and late-night meetings turned into desperate pre-dawn sessions seeking to put issues back on track and, finally, to seal the overall agreement. Tempers were frazzled, sensibilities were hurt and resentments flared. Holbrooke, who is credited with being the locomotive of the talks, operated with gradations of anger...
...structure of competing and balancing political forces that no one can say whether it will struggle along or collapse once more into war. Similarly, the military mission to police that agreement may succeed or sink into the deadly quagmire so many Americans fear. America, its NATO allies and the Balkan leaders are now bound together in the peace effort, and it will test them all severely...
NATO Defense ministers unanimously endorsed the Bosnian "implementation force," known as IFOR, and dubbed the mission Operation Joint Endeavor. General George Joulwan, NATO's European commander, said most of the 60,000 heavily armed troops from 15 different countries would be in the Balkans within a month of the signing of the Balkan peace agreement in Paris, now scheduled for mid-December...