This is a comprehensive mandate with respect to War Crimes Tribunal compliance.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) who is the mandate placed upon in terms of the arrest and turning over of indicted war criminal suspects and providing access to suspected sites of war crimes activities like the mass graves around Srebrenica.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SHATTUCK: The mandate runs to all the parties, and by that I mean Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Serb authority included, and also Croatia and Serbia. The mandate is full cooperation and compliance with orders of the international War Crimes Tribunal;. and, as I said, those orders are comprehensive. Any kind of order that is lawful under the Security Council mandate of the War Crimes Tribunal would be subject to compliance in the way I've just described.

Take one more.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) Can you give us some idea of how many (inaudible) you were  talking about?  

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SHATTUCK: It's very difficult to estimate precisely. Certainly, there are many prisoners and people in detention or under situations of forced labor in the Bosnian Serb held areas. The area around Banja Luka, which I recently visited, the  estimate there has been something in the neighborhood of 1,000, but it's very difficult to estimate that precisely. But the most important thing here is that the mandate of this agreement requires that the International Committee for the Red Cross be given full access to all suspected site places of detention and all people, and that the authorities fully cooperate with the ICRC in its effort to locate missing persons -- that's how that information will be gathered -- and that detention centers and places of detention will be immediately closed.

Just one more question.

QUESTION: Srebrenica is (inaudible)--

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SHATTUCK: They will be in Bosnia-Herzegovina under the Serb authority -- Bosnian Serb authority.

QUESTION: (Inaudible)

ASSISTANT SECRETARY SHATTUCK: It is possible to get access to Srebrenica now. President Milosevic has personally stated that access to all such areas where war crimes and issues involving human rights violations have occurred, those places are accessible.The peace agreement requires that the authorities cooperate in allowing access by the International War Crimes Tribunal and other organizations -- international organizations to Srebrenica, Zepa, Banja Luka and any other areas where suspected crimes may have occurred.

I think with respect to your second question, I think the catastrophe, the human rights enormous catastrophe, perhaps the worst single human rights catastrophe of this war in one place, was in many ways the galvanizing event in the tragedy that it was to lead toward this process which has culminated in this peace agreement. I think the international community, led by in this case the United States, has been very much having Srebrenica and Zepa and those who lost their lives in Srebrenica in mind as we move toward this full implementation of this peace agreement. The mandate of the War Crimes Tribunal have full authority to engage in its work in these areas. Thank you.

(The briefing concluded at 6:06 p.m.)

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