950806

Bosnian PM given

deadline to drop

resignation

SARAJEVO: Bosnia's ruling party has given Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic until August 9 to withdraw his resignation and has offered a slate of six names as possible replacements, government radio reported on Sunday.

Silajdzic resigned on Thursday during a Bosnian Parliament session in the city of Zenica, without making his reasons public.

Bosnian radio said the ruling Party of Democratic Action (SDA), also meeting in Zenica, criticized the timing of Silajdzic's resignation at a time of political and military crisis for the country, saying it had led to "harmful speculation".

The radio said the SDA, a Moslem party which dominates the Bosnian parliament, had given Silajdzic -- himself an SDA member -- until August 9 to withdraw his resignation.

If Silajdzic refuses to reconsider, the SDA has recommended that a session of the Bosnia's collective Presidency be held on August 10th to consider naming a successor, the radio said.

The SDA proposed a list of six names for the post of Prime Minister, a decision over which the Parliament would have final say.

Best known among the six was Hasan Muratovic, currently minister in charge of relations with the United Nations.

The other five included Fatima Leho, Director of the Bank of Bosnia, Kasim Begic, Dean of the Law Faculty in Sarajevo, Safet Orucevic, Mayor of (East) Mostar, Mehmed Corhodzic, director of a textile factory in Travnik, and Izudin Kapatonovic, an electrical engineer from Tuzla.

Haris Silajdzic has been the most prominent Bosnian political figure on the world stage throughout his country's 40- month war.

Serving first as Foreign Minister and then as Prime Minister he has been an ardent advocate of lifting the U.N. arms embargo against Bosnia.-Reuter