HOPES that an international military force will remain in Bosnia for at least a year after next Saturday's elections received a substantial boost yesterday when the German Foreign Minister said he supported such a move.
Mr Volker Ruehe told the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine that international troops should remain in Bosnia until October 1997.
Mr Ruehe also suggested that a German officer could become the chief of staff.
Other Nato countries have not yet stated a view on the proposal, which most observers consider essential if the state is not to disintegrate rapidly after the election.
On Monday, the international High Representative in Bosnia, Mr Carl Bildt, said he would like to see a "deterrent force" continuing in Bosnia to ensure the state is not broken up.
Voters in the two Bosnian entities created by last December's Dayton accord the Muslim Croat Federation and a Serb Republic will elect a joint presidency and assembly for Bosnia on Saturday.
In addition, they will elect separate assemblies and presidents of their respective entities.
Hopes that the Bosnia wide power sharing institutions will work are tempered by the knowledge that the main Serb, Croat and Muslim nationalist parties are certain to achieve landslide victories in their separate regions.
There are fears that the election,rather than provide stability, will simply confirm the position of the parties that want to divide Bosnia and encourage Serbs and Croats to secede.
Serb leaders have been stating openly during the campaign that they want to secede from Bosnia and unite with Serbia.
The main Serb nationalist party, the SDS, talks about the poll as a referendum on secession, which it will win comfortably.
At a press conference yesterday in Sarajevo, however, Mr Robert Frowick, the head of the OSCE mission organising the election said he had just received an assurance from the SDS leader, Mrs Biljana Plavsic, that her party supported the objective of a united Bosnia.
"Perhaps there is a certain amount of hyperbole on the hustings," Mr Frowick said.
Most observers believe that the only way to prevent the disintegration of the state is for a strong international force to remain in Bosnia for at least another year.
The mandate of the present force, Ifor, runs out at the end of this year and President Clinton has promised to adhere to this timetable.
The US administration has refused to comment on the prospect of a continuing military presence until after November's US presidential election.
Meanwhile, the OSCE yesterday agreed with the authorities in both Bosnia's entities that it will extend its mandate to allow it supervise municipal elections, which were postponed because Bosnian Serbs were rigging the electoral register.
"There is an increasing probability that they will take place by the end of the year," Mr Frowick said yesterday.