Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev said Thursday that he believes Bosnian Serb leaders are inclined to accept an international peace plan to end the 27-month war in Bosnia.


A Bosnian Serb assembly once more rejected the plan in an emergency session that ended Thursday and demanded new negotiations.


But Grachev, who returned on Wednesday from a day-long visit to the former Yugoslavia, was quoted by Itar-Tass and Interfax as saying the Serbs would accept the peace plan if assured that it is not final and could be negotiated further.


The plan was drafted by the United States, Russia, Britain, France and Germany. It would slash Serb territorial holdings in Bosnia from 70 percent to 49 percent, and give Bosnian Croats and Moslems the rest.


Croats and Moslems have accepted the peace proposal.


The Russian side tried to convince the Bosnian Serbs that once they had signed the plan, steps could be taken toward lifting international sanctions against the former Yugoslavia, Grachev told Interfax. Russia, a traditional ally of the Serbs, has long promised it would try to get the sanctions lifted.


On the other hand, Grachev said he told the Serbs that if they turn down the plan, "no other member of the Russian government will be likely to come. Russia cannot remain alone on the issue and go against the flow."


"Russia will certainly not turn away, but it will be far harder for it to solve the problem," he said, according to Interfax.


Meanwhile, in Sarajevo, the United Nations condemned Bosnian Serb forces on Thursday for an attack on a British UN convoy Wednesday that left one British peacekeeper dead.


"I unreservedly condemn this unprovoked attack on peacekeepers who were at no time a threat to anybody," Lieutenant-General Sir Michael Rose, UN commander in Bosnia, said in a statement issued in Sarajevo.


The Bosnian Serbs opened fire on the British resupply convoy on Wednesday afternoon on a road leading into the city, igniting a fuel tanker, wounding two peacekeepers and a civilian.


One of the wounded British soldiers, who was shot in the chest, later died of his wounds. He was later identified as Corporal Phillip Bottomley, 26, of Cleveland, England. He was part of a 200-strong Royal Logistics Corps that backs up UN forces. He had a 5-year-old daughter.


Rose said he stood ready to call in NATO air power to protect his peacekeeping troops. He said: "if they (the Serbs) continue to behave in this very, very negative fashion towards the peace process then it's quite clear the statement that they're making to the world is that they're no longer interested in pursuing the path to peace."


Grachev said he had delivered "three fundamental proposals" from President Boris Yeltsin to the Serb leadership.


Grachev would neither confirm or deny that Moscow had offered to deploy a large reinforcement of Russian peacekeeping troops.


(Reuters, AP)