United Nations, July 04: Averting a shutdown of its peacekeeping exercise in Bosnia, the UN security council has extended the police-training mission by another 12 days to resolve the contentious dispute caused by a US veto. Had the extension, the second in four days, been not granted, the mission would have been shut down at midnight last night though the EU was reportedly making contingency plans to take it over immediately. Faced with strong opposition from European allies to its proposal that its peacekeepers be exempted from the jurisdiction of the new international criminal court, the US yesterday allowed extension of the UN mission in Bosnia till July 15 to give diplomats time to work out a compromise. It had vetoed a resolution on Sunday to extend the Bosnian mission for another six months by which time a European union force was expected to take over
The American demand stems from its fear that its peacekeepers might be subject to politically motivated and frivolous prosecution by the court.

The American decision to allow the 12-day extension came after UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, in a blunt letter to US Secretary of State Colin Powell, warned that the whole system of UN peacekeeping operations was being put at risk.

No peacekeeper in the UN history, he said, had been anywhere been accused of the crimes against humanity which the court would try. "The issue that us is raising in the council is therefore highly improbable," he said.

Bureau Report