U.S. Seeks U.N. Action on Serbia : Balkans: Baker wants to punish the land-grabbing Yugoslav state under the legal provisions used against Iraq. He emphasizes parallels between the situations.

LISBON — Secretary of State James A. Baker III, heaping scorn on diplomats who seem to search for excuses to avoid action to stop the bloodshed in Yugoslavia, said Sunday that the United States will appeal to the United Nations to punish Serbia under the same legal provisions that were used against Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait.

Talking to a press conference after a 62-nation meeting to coordinate aid to the former Soviet Union, Baker repeatedly drew parallels between possible mandatory sanctions against Serbia for its land grab against its neighbors in the crumbling Yugoslav federation and the economic, political and--ultimately--military action taken against Iraq.

“We are having discussions with others at the United Nations . . . about the possibility of some Chapter 7 action,” Baker said in reference to the provision of the U.N. Charter that authorizes the Security Council to impose mandatory sanctions and, if those fail, authorize the use of force.

In a related development Sunday, Canada suspended landing rights for Yugoslav Airlines and recalled its ambassador from Belgrade to protest continued belligerent activity by Serbian irregulars and the Serb-dominated Yugoslav federal army in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Reuters news agency reported. Canada also called for an urgent meeting of the Security Council to impose economic, trade and oil sanctions against the government of President Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade.

Baker, in a clear reference to the European Community, chided “anyone who is looking for reasons not to act, or arguing somehow that action in the face of this kind of nightmare is not warranted.”

Portuguese Foreign Minister Joao de Deus Pinheiro, president of the EC Council of Ministers for the first half of this year, said that community bureaucrats will meet Tuesday to recommend action the 12-nation bloc can take against Serbia for aggression against its neighbors, especially Bosnia-Herzegovina.

He said the community will consider “a full range of sanctions,” including imposing a commercial and oil embargo, freezing Serbian assets, breaking commercial air links, terminating technical cooperation and even banning Serbia from international sporting competition. He said the sanctions could be made increasingly severe if Milosevic continues to ignore the international criticism.

“We want to send a strong message that we are not willing to accept” the situation in Yugoslavia, Pinheiro said. He said it is time to ask the United Nations to force the reopening of the airport at Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital. The airport has been closed for weeks by Serbian military pressure, effectively blocking the delivery of relief supplies.

In Canada where he is visiting, U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said that reopening the Sarajevo airport would exceed the current mandate of U.N. peacekeeping forces now in Yugoslavia, Reuters reported. Boutros-Ghali said such an operation would require additional forces and a new mandate from the Security Council.

Baker said that he was “encouraged to hear what my colleague (Pinheiro) here has said, and I would be even more encouraged if, coming out of the (EC) meeting on Tuesday, there were a willingness on the part of our European colleagues to act.”

The secretary of state said it is too early to consider possible military action, but he left the door open to some sort of multinational armed intervention if political measures fail.

Asked about possible military action, Baker said: “That is obviously a very hypothetical question at this point. We had to face hypothetical questions like that leading up to the events in the (Persian) Gulf over a long period of time.

“There will be no unilateral use--unilateral use--of United States force,” he added. His repetition clearly was intended to signal that he was not ruling out U.S. participation in the sort of international coalition that fought the Gulf War, although he said peaceful means must be exhausted first.

Russian Foreign Minister Andrei V. Kozyrev, whose nation wields a Security Council veto, said U.N. sanctions would be warranted if the situation in the Balkans continues to deteriorate. But he added, “Other things should be tried first.”

Kozyrev left Sunday night for Slovenia at the start of a planned visit to all six former Yugoslav republics. He said he hopes to fly into the Sarajevo airport in a symbolic reopening of that facility.

Baker said he is willing to give Kozyrev some time to try to persuade Milosevic to change his course. But he sounded skeptical.

“It’s all too easy to sit back and talk about this tragedy in a vacuum,” Baker said. “It’s important for everyone to understand what is happening (in Bosnia), because we are appalled by it. There are 35,000 diabetics who have no insulin. There are 6,000 women and babies who have no medicine, baby formula or milk. There are reports in the last 48 hours of hunger-related deaths because food and humanitarian assistance cannot get through.”

In a clear comparison to the policies of Nazi Germany, Baker denounced efforts by Bosnia’s Serbian community to drive Muslims and Croats out of Serbian-controlled areas.

“The so-called ‘cleansing operations’ that are taking place, the ethnic purification of certain portions of Bosnia-Herzegovina, are all too reminiscent of something that we sat back and witnessed a number of years ago,” Baker said.

Leaders of the Serb, Croat and Muslim communities of Bosnia were in Lisbon, but they refused to meet face to face. Instead, the three groups met separately with EC mediators.

Klaus Kinkel, the newly named foreign minister of Germany, perhaps the community’s most powerful nation, seemed to join Baker in his impatience with the slow pace of the cumbersome EC bureaucracy.

“This is a problem for Europe, and it will continue to be a problem for Europe,” Kinkel said. “Of course we will be grateful for any support. But it will be urgent for us to put together a solution. People have the impression that we are helpless, that we are groping in the dark while the killing is going on in Yugoslavia.

“What is happening (there) . . . is atrocious and should be condemned,” he said. “The Serbians are responsible.”

Almost overlooked because of the Balkans crisis was the purpose of the conference that drew representatives of 62 countries and a dozen international organizations to Lisbon. Conference leaders reported, however, that the nations agreed it is important to continue coordinated economic and technical assistance to the newly independent states that once were the Soviet Union.

Summarizing the meeting, Portugal’s Pinheiro said the world community can take pride in the way it met the short-term needs of Russia and the other republics for food and medicine last winter.

No overall aid figures were developed at this conference, but most of the nations promised to continue their help to convert the old centralized Soviet economy into 12 free-market economies.

The Lisbon meeting was the second such conference, following one held in Washington last January. The next conference will be held in Tokyo in October.

After the conference ended, Baker and Kozyrev met for about two hours to discuss details for Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin’s scheduled June 16 visit to Washington for a summit meeting with President Bush.

Both presidents have said they hope to agree on cutting their nuclear arsenals much more than is required by the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks treaty. But there is no agreement on how to manage the reductions.

Kozyrev insisted that he and Baker were very close to agreement. Noting the somewhat unsettled weather in Lisbon, Kozyrev said the arms control atmosphere was “sunny.” Asked how close the United States and Russia are to an agreement, the Russian foreign minister held his arms out several feet apart and then quickly closed the gap to a few inches.

Ever cautious, Baker said, “I think that we made some good progress here today.” Adopting Kozyrev’s metaphor, he said the arms control weather forecast “might possibly have some sun in it.” Then he added, “We’re not there yet, and we have some more to do.”