POPE John Paul II will realise a long held wish when he travels to the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, for a pastoral visit probably in April.
Both the Vatican senior spokesman, Dr Joaquin Navarro Vals, and a spokesman for the Archbishop of Sarajevo, Cardinal Vinko Puljic, yesterday confirmed that the Pope had accepted an invitation from Bosnia's collective presidency to visit Sarajevo.
Throughout the four year war in former Yugoslavia, the Pope not only made regular appeals for peace but also expressed a desire to go on a pilgrimage to Sarajevo, a city he considered a symbol of human suffering.
A papal visit had been organised for September 8th, 1994, but had to be abandoned, when the Bosnian Serb forces laying siege to the city made it clear that they could not guarantee the Pope's safety during an intended 16 hour stay. Speaking in the Vatican yesterday, Dr Navarro Vals said the date and details of the Pope's visit had yet to be finalised.
In Sarajevo, however, the Rev Ivo Tomasevic, secretary to Cardinal Puljic, was more specific, saying: "The Pope will be coming to Sarajevo and it was agreed that it will be some time in April. .. The Pope's programme will be similar to the abandoned visit of September 8th, 1994."
President Alija Izetbegovic, the Muslim who led Bosnia's wartime government and who is now chairman of the three man collective Presidency comprising Muslims, Croats and Serbs, has long been in favour of a papal visit to Sarajevo.
On previous occasions, Orthodox Serbs have been unwilling to host the Pope, arguing that the Vatican's early recognition of the independence of the republics of both Slovenia and Croatia in 1992 served only to exacerbate the conflict in former Yugoslavia.
This current invitation, however has come from the collective presidency, Serb members included.