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SARAJEVO (AFP) - Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica arrived in Sarajevo on Sunday as the first Yugoslav head of state to visit the Bosnian capital since the country's brutal 1992-95 war. Sarajevo, the scene of a bloody three-and-a-half year siege by Bosnian Serb forces, has always held Belgrade largely responsible for the conflict. Kostunica arrived onboard a U.N. helicopter from the Bosnian Serb town of Trebinje, where he had attended the reburial of a Serb poet who died more than 50 years ago in exile. He was accompanied by Zivko Radisic, the Serb chairman of Bosnia's tripartite presidency, and Jacques Paul Klein, a U.N. special representative to Bosnia, who had earlier described Kostunica's visit as historic and symbolic. Kostunica was to hold 40-minute talks at the Sarajevo airport with Halid Genjac, the presidency's Muslim representative, and Foreign Minister Jadranko Prlic. The Croat member of the presidency, Ante Jelavic, was unable to attend the meeting because of previously scheduled activities. He was to be represented by an aide. After the meeting, Kostunica planned to fly to the Montenegrin capital of Podgorica. Klein hailed the visit as an "historic opportunity for the leaders of the neighboring countries to start the process of normalizing relations, a process crucial to lasting peace and stability in the region and to the two countries' common European destinies," a statement from his office said. That view was echoed by a top Bosnian official, who estimated that the visit was "an important breakthrough in [the] normalization of relations" between Sarajevo and Belgrade. Mirza Hajric, an aide to Genjac, said that it was "a move in the right direction." The visit was decided on Saturday in a bid to calm Bosnian authorities who said they had been bypassed by the Bosnian Serb's invitation to Kostunica. |
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