MUSLIMS URGE UN TO REJECT BOSNIA PLAN

The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has asked the United Nations Security Council to reject a proposed peace agreement for Bosnia-Herzegovina and lift an arms embargo on Bosnian Muslims, OIC officials said yesterday.

OIC Secretary-General Hamid Algabid said in letters to the five permanent Security Council members the accord amounted to an endorsement of the "ethnic cleansing" of Muslims by Serbs in the former Yugoslavia.

Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic has rejected key parts of the plan drawn up by the co-chairmen of UN-backed peace talks on Bosnia's war between Muslims, Serbs, and Croats. The plan would compel warring parties to accept a cease-fire and division of the republic into 10 provinces in a federated state.

The co-chairmen, Cyrus Vance and Lord David Owen, have moved their negotiations to New York from Geneva in the hope the Security Council and particularly the US will support the peace plan.