CROATIA REP. ADDRESS U.N. COMMITTEE ON PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS

UNITED NATIONS, March 4 (Hina) - Croatia believes that U.N. peace operations are the main tool of maintaining international peace and security and, supporting them, itself participates in five U.N. peace missions in the world, Croatia's representative to the world organisation said on Monday. #L# Croatia's charge d'affaires Jasna Ognjanovac was speaking at a session of the United Nations Special Committee on Peace Keeping Operations. Five U.N. peace missions were carried out in Croatia, the last on the Prevlaka peninsula which wrapped last December. Currently 65 Croatian military observers are maintaining peace and security in Ethiopia and Eritreia, Sierra Leone, India and Pakistan, West Sahara and Afghanistan. Croatia's experience with recent wars and the observers' training are the reason of their deployment in some of the world's hot spots where conflicts have just ended or still erupt occasionally. Croatia has recently signed with the U.N. a memorandum of understanding under which the country is to provide 132 civil and military peacekeepers. Ognjanovac said Croatia could not engage more personnel due to the reorganisation and reduction of its own armed forces, but vowed participation would be extended once conditions allowed. Ognjanovac said she supported Secretary-General Kofi Annan's position that the effectiveness of peace operations in the world had to be reinforced by their fast deployment. She cautioned, however, about the technical difficulties many countries faced in this task, Croatia included, and appealed for U.N. support in dealing with this problem. Croatia will put its experts for nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, as well as military observers, at the U.N.'s disposal so as to help in stepping up the early deployment of peace troops. Ognjanovac said regional cooperation could ensure faster deployment. This May Croatia will host a U.N. peacekeepers training course. (hina) ha