SARAJEVO, Jan 7 (Hina) - Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader's announcement that the problem of the completion of a highway connecting Split and Dubrovnik in southern Croatia will be solved by building a bridge from the mainland to
the Peljesac peninsula has met with negative reactions among Bosnian authorities.
SARAJEVO, Jan 7 (Hina) - Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader's
announcement that the problem of the completion of a highway
connecting Split and Dubrovnik in southern Croatia will be solved by
building a bridge from the mainland to the Peljesac peninsula has met
with negative reactions among Bosnian authorities.#L#
Bosnian officials have expressed surprise at the fact that Croatia's
new government has reactivated ideas thought to have been scrapped a
long time ago.
The minister of civil affairs and president of the Party for
Bosnia-Herzegovina, Safet Halilovic, has said Sanader is in effect
trying to force Bosnia to accept a deal on the use of the Croatian
seaport of Ploce.
The chairman of the Council of Ministers, Adnan Terzic, has voiced
hope the issue will be addressed at his first meeting with Sanader
scheduled for mid-February, probably in Zagreb.
The status of the Ploce port will not be the only unpleasant topic as
Terzic and Sanader also have to consider the implementation of a free
trade agreement whose full application has been postponed for three
months under a decision of the Bosnian government.
Only then will it be possible to raise the issue of the building of
the highway and the bridge to Peljesac. "I have to admit I was a
little bit surprised by the fast and categorical decision and
announcement of the Croatian government that the passage of a highway
through or around (Bosnia's) Neum will be solved with a bridge between
Komarno and Peljesac," the Sarajevo-based Dnevni avaz daily quoted
Terzic as saying on Wednesday.
Transport and Communications Minister Branko Dokic was quoted by
today's Oslobodjenje as saying the key aspect of the whole problem was
in the fact that Croatia, like Bosnia and Serbia-Montenegro, had to
think together about the building of the Adriatic-Ionian Highway.
Over the next two months, representatives of the three countries
should meet to outline positions on the building of the
Adriatic-Ionian Highway and all other international corridors in this
part of Europe.
(Hina) ha sb