Mine clearance projects in border areas are very important for future relations between the two countries, Sapic said.
The removal of land mines from the area measuring about 150,000 square metres will create conditions for the construction of a new border crossing point at Batrovci on the Belgrade-Zagreb highway, opposite the Bajakovo crossing on the Croatian side. The present crossing point at Batrovci has so far been a transport bottleneck.
Mine clearance operations in the area have so far been financed by the Serbian Directorate for Building Land, but in the future funds for this purpose will also be provided by the European Union.
About 6 million square metres of land bordering on Croatia has been infested with mines. According to records and estimates of the Serbian Mine Clearance Centre, there are about 9,000 mines left in the area, said the head of the Serbian Mine Clearance Centre, Petar Mihajlovic.
Mihajlovic said that 1.5 million square metres of land in the border area had been cleared of mines in 2003 and 2004 and that about 3,500 different land mines had been found and destroyed.
Vukovar-Srijem County Prefect Nikola Safer said that it was also in Croatia's interests to remove mines from the border area, and that it would be easier to find the necessary funds for this purpose through cooperation.
Safer said that the life of people living along the border between Croatia and Serbia would improve substantially with the land mines removed.
He said that 159 people had been killed by land mines in his county since the end of the war in 1995.