WAR crimes investigators are due to start examining suspected mass grave sites around Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia this week, US officers accompanying the Defence Secretary, Mr William Perry, said yesterday.
Up to 8,000 Muslim men are believed to have been executed as prisoners or shot dead in ambushes by separatist Serbs in July 1995 when they captured Srebrenica, then a Bosnian government enclave and UN "safe area".
Investigators for the UN war crimes tribunal in former Yugoslavia want to unearth suspected mass graves, mainly on Serb held land, as part of the Dayton peace agreement and have asked Nato peacekeepers for precautionary protection.
Officers in the US army division overseeing north east Bosnia said they expected a UN inquiry team to arrive in the Srebrenica region tomorrow.
Admiral Leighton Smith, commander in chief of the 60,000 strong peace Implementation Force (Ifor), said US and other Ifor troops would offer "general area security" for war crimes investigators, but nothing more.
Frustrated for months by a lack of co operation from nationalist factions, the tribunal achieved a double breakthrough this weekend when Serbia handed over two witnesses to slaughters of Srebrenica Muslims and Croatia pledged a Croat war crimes suspect would surrender today.
Both steps were taken under pressure from the US.
After visiting US troops in the north east city of Tuzla, Mr Perry flew to Sarajevo where he met Mr Ejup Ganic, vice President of the Muslim Croat federation.
Mr Ganic said Sarajevo had pleaded for Nato troops to arrest the Bosnian Serb army chief, Gen Ratko Mladic, and political leader Dr Radovan Karadzic, who have been indicted by the tribunal for crimes against humanity.
The two, who have been charged in connection to the alleged massacres in Srebrenica, have refused to step down in office as required by the Dayton peace accord signed in December.
Mr Perry, repeating Washington's standard public position, did not say whether Nato would take action to arrest Gen Mladic and Dr Karadzic.
Mr Perry said that he did not expect the two to "be in positions' of power by the end of this year".
He also said the Muslim led government had made significant progress in removing foreign forces from their territory.
The Sarajevo government has come under criticism from Washington for failing to make good on promises to ensure Islamic fighters assisting their army leave the country.
The German Foreign Minister, Mr Klaus Kinkel, said yesterday German and possibly European aid for post war reconstruction would be withheld if the last prisoners of war in former Yugoslavia were not freed by midnight.