ZAGREB, April 5 (Hina) - The Ambassador of Serbia and Montenegro, Milan Simurdic, on Monday visited the Croatian Parliament where he met Foreign Policy Committee Chairman Neven Jurica for talks on a visit of a delegation of Croatian
parliamentary committees to Serbia scheduled for mid-May.
ZAGREB, April 5 (Hina) - The Ambassador of Serbia and Montenegro, Milan
Simurdic, on Monday visited the Croatian Parliament where he met
Foreign Policy Committee Chairman Neven Jurica for talks on a visit of
a delegation of Croatian parliamentary committees to Serbia scheduled
for mid-May.#L#
The meeting at parliamentary level will precede a meeting of the prime
ministers of Croatia and Serbia, the Parliament's Public Relations
Office said in a statement.
Simurdic informed his host of the situation in Kosovo and presidential
elections in Serbia, due to take place in June.
Comparing presidential powers in the two countries, he said that the
president of Serbia was vested with greater powers than the president
of Croatia because the Serbian president was also authorised to
countersign laws.
It was said that Belgrade had ratified a free trade agreement with
Croatia and that the two countries were yet to begin talks on
aviation, navigation on the Sava river and finalisation of an
agreement on national minorities.
When asked by Jurica about the position of national minorities,
Simurdic said that they had their representatives in parliament, were
entitled to use their own language in Vojvodina province, and that a
Catholic high school was also operating there.
As for Croatia's relations with its neighbours, Jurica said that all
of its foreign policy activities were directed at Brussels in order to
obtain a positive opinion from the European Commission on its
application for membership of the European Union.
Jurica said that relations with neighbouring countries were important
and that Croatia would start dealing with outstanding issues soon, the
statement said.
(Hina) vm