Leaders to Boost Ties in Balkans

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina —  The presidents of Yugoslavia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia held a landmark summit in Sarajevo on Monday and pledged to rebuild peace, trust and trade among three states riven by the Balkan wars.

But there was also a note of lingering discord as Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica declined to apologize for Serb atrocities, or to call on former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic to surrender to a U.N. war crimes tribunal.

Monday’s summit, the first of its kind since the wars of the 1990s, was held in the bullet-scarred Old Town of Sarajevo, whose siege by Bosnian Serb forces encapsulated the mass bloodshed and ethnic strife of that era.

The leaders, none of whom were in office during the war, promised to respect one another’s borders, cooperate to boost trade and fight crime, and to repatriate refugees.