SLOVENE MINISTER ON DEBT TO CROATIAN DEPOSITORS, POWER PLANT

LJUBLJANA, Jan 10 (Hina) - Slovenia's foreign minister said in parliament on Friday claims about Croatia's liability to pay off depositors with Ljubljanska Bank's Zagreb branch, recently made public by a Slovene official, reinforced the official stance of the government in Ljubljana. #L# "Evidence that Slovenia never had an obligation towards Croatian depositors with the one-time Ljubljanska Bank Zagreb, because the guarantees after the break-up of Yugoslavia were assumed by Croatia... in no way changes Slovenia's policy on that issue, but only reinforces it," Dimitrij Rupel told parliament's foreign affairs committee. The claim about Croatia's liability in the matter were made earlier this week by Rudolf Gabrovec, the head of Slovenia's team in charge of succession to the ex-Yugoslavia. Rupel said he and Gabrovec recently discussed succession talks, concluding they should be reactivated. Regarding the Ljubljanska Bank debt, Rupel advocates the resumption of talks under the auspices of the Basel-based Bank for International Settlements. He said today the problem lay in the fact that Croatia had not yet ratified the Vienna succession deal and that some successor states had still not taken a stand regarding the resumption of the talks in Basel. MPs asked about claims in Slovene media that the Croatian power utility company HEP was willing to sell its share in the jointly- owned Krsko nuclear power plant to Slovenia for EUR720 million. Rupel said he could not respond because no official offer had been made by either HEP or the Croatian government. Slovenia's business newspaper Finance links Slovene officials' claims about Ljubljanska Bank to an official trip Prime Minister Anton Rop intends to make to Croatia next week, saying they are aimed at probing for Croatia's stand on the matter. (hina) ha