Americans Urged to Get Out of Croatia, Slovenia

WASHINGTON — The United States Thursday urged its citizens to leave the breakaway Yugoslav republics of Croatia and Slovenia as soon as possible and advised those elsewhere in the troubled country to also consider leaving.

A State Department travel warning said certain non-essential U.S. government personnel and dependents had been withdrawn from the U.S. Consulate in the Croatian capital of Zagreb.

The State Department, repeating an advisory issued in June when Slovenia and Croatia first declared their intent to secede, also urged Americans considering travel to Yugoslavia to change their plans.

Meanwhile, a shaky cease-fire held throughout most of strife-torn Croatia for a second day Thursday, despite reports that a Croatian guardsman was killed near Glina, when Serbian militants fired on Croatian security positions.

Permanent peace appeared far off, however, as rival Croatian and Serbian leaders stated opposing positions on whether to permit foreign involvement to avert all-out civil war.

In Prague, Czechoslovakia, the 35-nation Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe convened a meeting Thursday to discuss ways to resolve the crisis.