BOSNIA, CROATIA, MACEDONIA REQUEST DELAY OF DISCUSSION ON LJUBLJANSKA BANKA

STRASBOURG/LJUBLJANA, Jan 27(Hina) - Delegations of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Macedonia have requested postponement of the first discussion on a draft resolution on the payment of debts of the former Slovene bank Ljubljanska Banka to the three countries. The resolution was to be discussed on Tuesday by the Council of Europe's Legal Affairs and Human Rights Committee.#L# The head of the Bosnian delegation, Hasan Muratovic, told the Slovene news agency STA on Monday that the three delegations had sent a joint letter to Rapporteur Erik Jurgens asking for his draft report to be discussed at one of the next sessions of the Committee after his consultations on the matter with the three delegations. The letter said that the draft report did not appropriately present the debts of Ljubljanska Banka in their entirety and that the report needed to be amended. The report treats the bank's debts in a wrong way, because it considers them a result of the collapse of the banking system of the former Yugoslavia and says that it is impossible to convert the debts into a legal obligation, the letter said. "The banks have remained and have normally operated for years after that, and are still operating today. They, therefore, have legal obligations towards the depositors," Muratovic told STA. He added that this problem could not be treated as an issue of succession, as insisted by the Slovene side. STA said that the delegation of Serbia and Montenegro was neutral in the dispute and that this country's central bank had taken on the obligation to pay out old foreign currency savings as part of the repayment of frozen foreign currency deposits. (Hina) vm