NEW YORK: CROATIAN FOREIGN MINISTER WITH CHAIRMAN OF UN SECURITY COUNCIL

NEW YORK, March 24 (Hina) - Croatian Foreign Minister Miomir Zuzul in New York on Wednesday held talks with the chairman of the UN Security Council on the Resolution on the Exit Strategy of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).#L# Zuzul held talks with this month's chairman of the council, French Ambassador Jean Marc de La Sabliere. He is also scheduled to hold talks with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Zuzul told reporters that he and the French ambassador talked about Croatia's cooperation with the Hague tribunal, which is of particular importance at this moment because the Security Council is expected to adopt the Resolution on the ICTY Exit Strategy by the end of the week. Under the resolution, all indictments should be issued by the end of 2004, all trials completed by 2008 and all appeals proceedings finished by 2010, when the ICTY would close down. The resolution says that the tribunal needs to concentrate only on the most important cases that deal with political leaders, Zuzul said The resolution also mentions three people who are unavailable to the Hague tribunal, former Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, and Croatian General Ante Gotovina. The resolution does not clearly state what their treatment will be, but it leaves room for any decision the Security Council adopts in the future and I believe that this clearly indicates that until the three men become available to the tribunal, the process is not completed, Zuzul said. He said it was particularly important for Croatia that the resolution envisages that all other cases be tried before domestic courts. "I stressed that the Croatian government, namely the Croatian judiciary, is ready to take on those cases," Minister Zuzul said. He said Croatia had taken a series of steps in the judicial reform, one of the key issues for the country, and added Croatia was ready to start processing those cases. (Hina) it