[R-G] Karadzic-Holbrooke deal confirmed

[Anthony Fenton]

Karadzic-Holbrooke deal confirmed
Fri, 01 Aug 2008 06:18:24
Mohammad Sacirbey,Radovan Karadzic
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=65316&sectionid=351020606

Mohammad Sacirbey, former Bosnian foreign minster says that US  
diplomat, Richard Holbrooke made an unambiguous political deal with  
Serb leader Radavan Karadzic.

Sacirbey pointing out that he has been telling this story for more  
than a decade now, said the Holbrooke-Karadzic pact called for  
Karadzic to give up leadership of his political party and to drop out  
of public life in return for his already existing war crimes  
indictment being scrapped.

In an exclusive interview with a Press TV correspondent, Sacirbey  
confirmed that a top US diplomat, Robert Frowick, head of the OSCE  
mission in Bosnia in 1996 was his source for the information of the  
Holbrooke-Karadzic deal. Sacirbey described Frowick as an  
unimpeachable point of reference.

Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic made his first appearance  
at the UN's Yugoslav war crimes tribunal on Thursday charged with  
genocide.

Karadzic alleged in his remarks to the court that he had made a deal  
in 1996 with then top US negotiator Richard Holbrooke to drop out of  
public life in return for his war crimes indictment being dropped.

The US has always denied the Karadzic family's claims that a deal was  
made. Now the straightforward statements of former foreign minister  
Sacirbey raises an obvious contradiction to American claims and  
heightens the tensions around the Karadzic trial, as no one knows what  
other potential bombshells he might drop next or whether the court  
will allow him to speak.

In a July 26 interview with Germany's Spiegel Online International,  
Holbrooke was asked about rumors that he had told Karadzic that if he  
retired from politics, he wouldn't be sent to the war crimes tribunal.  
"Those are lies I do not comment on any longer," Holbrooke said at the  
time.

Elsewhere, Holbrooke, who was the architect of the Dayton peace  
agreement that belatedly ended the Bosnian conflict and the ethnic  
cleansing and genocide against Europe's only indigenous Muslim  
population, said in an interview aired on CNN on Thursday, that he won  
a commitment from Karadzic in July 1996 to step down from his  
political positions.

"I negotiated a very tough deal. He had to step down immediately from  
both his posts as president of the Serb part of Bosnia and as head of  
his party. And he did so," Holbrooke said in a recorded interview.  
Apparently Karadzic provided the quid pro quo of the agreement in his  
statements on Thursday.

SG/HAR