FORMER BOSNIAN PM FOR ORGANISING BOSNIA INTO THREE REPUBLICS

MOSTAR, Aug 11 (Hina) - Organising Bosnia-Herzegovina into three republics would be very effective and functional, former Bosnian prime minister and former Bosnian ambassador to Croatia Hasan Muratovic has said. "It would be easier to build the state of Bosnia-Herzegovina on the model of three republics since there would be consensus for such a model," Muratovic said in a debate on constitutional changes in Bosnia which Hercegovacka Television aired on Tuesday evening. Muratovic, who was recently elected head of the university in Sarajevo, is considered one of the most influential officials of the Party of Democratic Action. He was the first Muslim official after the 1990s war to support organising Bosnia into three republics. Muratovic said such a model had been considered also by the Commission for Constitutional Changes which operates within the Sarajevo Centre for Security Studies under the auspices of the international community and of which he is a member. The Commission, which is tackling the future organisation of Bosnia, is comprised of 15 experts, five from each of Bosnia's three constituent peoples -- Croats, Muslims and Serbs. Professor Bozo Zepic, a Croat member of the Commission who proposed the three republics' model, said in the same TV programme that under his concept Bosnia would be comprised of the Republic of Bosnia, whose capital would be either Tuzla, Zenica or Travnik, the Republic of Bosanska Krajina, with Banja Luka as the capital, and the Republic of Herzegovina, with Mostar as the capital. Zepic said the republics could have a national prefix, Muslim for the Republic of Bosnia, Serb for the Republic of Bosanska Krajina, and Croat for the Republic of Herzegovina, but added that in his opinion the prefixes were unnecessary.