December 28, 1995
Web posted at: 11:20 p.m. EST (0420 GMT)
From Correspondent Christiane Amanpour
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (CNN) -- This week brought the first chance to really test compliance with the Bosnia peace accords and both sides in the conflict are being praised for passing with flying colors. Around Sarajevo, 40 key frontline positions have been handed over to IFOR, 20 from each side.
"The peace is bitter and cold. We are not fully satisfied, but it does give us a chance for our country to develop and it is with such hope that we enter 1996"
-- Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic
The positions that formed one of Sarajevo's fiercest battle zones were on the two sides of the river separating the city. On the Bosnian-held river bank are shattered buildings and apartments that once were gun positions. The Serb side shows the same level of destruction amid businesses and apartment blocks that were turned into combat posts.
Incredibly, just a day after the positions were abandoned, a face appears on one side while on the other, a line of laundry blows in the breeze. It is evidence that some civilians survived 45 months of war, living among the combatants.
| 
| 
|
The French forces responsible for Sarajevo have spent the past week, in addition to patrolling and sweeping for mines, in getting soldiers to leave their bunkers and trenches, to step back from war and towards peace.
At a special year-end press conference, Bosnian President Ilija Izetbegovic said Thursday that he considered the war over. "The peace is bitter and cold. We are not fully satisfied, but it does give us a chance for our country to develop and it is with such hope that we enter 1996," he said. (111K AIFF sound or 111K WAV sound)
As the first deadline passed, IFOR Ground Forces Commander Lt. Gen. Michael Walker repeated that he's satisfied with progress so far, but noted that his optimism is tinged with caution. "This is the honeymoon period. We have very real hurdles ahead of us all," he said.
The next hurdle will come in mid-January, when all sides must pull back from the cease-fire lines all over Bosnia. Several weeks later comes the transfer of some territories, including Sarajevo. The besieged and bitterly contested city will be reunified under Bosnian government control.
However, a troubling question hovers: Will another mass displacement of people, this time the Serbs, be the price tag of this peace deal?
Meanwhile, Walker says he wants to capitalize on the current momentum. Actions like knocking down checkpoints and barricades on Thursday was to show the Bosnian partisans that IFOR is different from the previous U.N. troops under UNPROFOR. "They humiliated UNPROFOR," Walker said. "They will not humiliate us."
Copyright © 1995 Cable News Network, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive