Kornblum , Milosevic discuss election crisis .
Peter Greste
BELGRADE 1996-08-29
U.S. envoy John Kornblum met Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic on Thursday in an effort to defuse a growing crisis surrounding Bosnia 's post-war elections .
The American diplomat arrived in Belgrade two days after international organisers postponed municipal elections in Bosnia due to irregularities in the registration of Serb refugee voters .
" We discussed the decision to postpone the municipal elections and I made clear it was primarily the manipulation of voter registration by the Republika Srpska ( Bosnian Serb republic ) which led to this development , " Kornblum said after three hours of talks .
But he said the United States still believed it was important to go ahead with national elections in Bosnia as scheduled on September 14 to bolster the peace process .
Kornblum gave no indication that he had won any specific commitment from Milosevic , the patron of the Bosnian Serbs , to rectify any abuses in the registration process .
Bosnia 's Moslem political parties have urged their refugees to boycott the elections until irregularities with voter registration are resolved .
Human rights workers say Serbian and Bosnian Serb authorities coerced refugees to register only in Serb-held territory in Bosnia to solidify the results of wartime expulsions and military conquest .
Serbian officials have denied any abuses occurred during a 10-day registration period and the Bosnian Serbs , angry at the postponement of municipal elections , have threatened to hold local polls on their territory without the international community 's blessing .
Kornblum said only elections endorsed by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe ( OSCE ) would be legitimate .
" As we have said publicly before , if there is any effort to do so ( hold local elections ) these elections will not be valid , " he said . "
The elections which are valid are those conducted by the international community under the management of the OSCE . "
After meeting Milosevic , Kornblum flew to the Croatian capital Zagreb .
He was due to head to the Bosnian town of Banja Luka on Friday to meet Bosnian Serb acting president Biljana Plavsic and Bosnian Serb opposition leaders .
He also planned to travel to Sarajevo to oversee the formal dissolution of the separatist Croat mini-state in western Bosnia .
U.N. police , relief workers and NATO officers have reported a rise in political violence across Bosnia in the run-up to the September 14 elections .
Voters will be choosing a three-member presidency and a parliament to rule over a loose union of Bosnia , comprised of a Serb republic and a Moslem-Croat federation .