Word: parliament
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Only a week ago, Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic had signed the Vance- Owen peace plan. Just as Secretary of State Warren Christopher switched gears in Europe, from lobbying allies on a plan to bomb the Serbs to discussing the formation of a U.N. peacekeeping force, the Bosnian Serb parliament scuttled Vance-Owen, 51-2. All the disagreements that a peace plan might have papered over were back. France and Britain, with troops on the ground, abhor air strikes just slightly less than permitting Bosnian government troops to receive arms, which they fear will only expand the war. Congressional leaders...
These men are no freak sect, out of touch with the Serb mainstream. They are the mainstream. The deputies of the Bosnian Serbs' self-appointed parliament proved that last week: they showed the same intransigence as the men in the trenches when they effectively rejected the Vance-Owen plan. No matter that the bosses from Belgrade coaxed, wheedled, pleaded and finally threatened; the deputies rudely turned their backs on compromise. Their bellicose stance was a rebuke not only to the meddling international community but also to Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who dared urge them...
...while preliminary results gave Yeltsin a 58% vote of confidence and a surprisingly high 53% approval for his economic reforms, political opponents denounced the vote as meaningless; he failed to get the absolute majority of all registered voters needed to force early elections that could replace the conservative parliament...
Vice President Alexander Rutskoi, once Yeltsin's ally, dismissed the referendum as a "sociological poll," and parliament chairman Ruslan Khasbulatov said it had "brought no losers or winners" -- just a weakening of the state. Yeltsin, however, took his victory as a mandate to begin strengthening his political clout. He summoned regional leaders to Moscow to present a new draft constitution that would turn Russia into a presidential republic with a two-chamber parliament to replace the present Congress of People's Deputies...
...across the Atlantic to solicit agreement or amendment before making his plan fully public. Meanwhile, the Bosnian Serbs moved to parry the building offensive. They agreed to attend a weekend peace conference in Athens with the other parties to the Vance-Owen peace plan and said their so-called parliament would meet on May 5 to reconsider a proposed settlement. "They must do more than simply sign a peace plan," Christopher warned at his Saturday briefing. "It will take actions on the ground to convince the international community of their good faith." Yet he acknowledged privately that "if the negotiations...