ZAGREB AND BELGRADE SHARE GOAL OF JOINING E.U. - OFFICIALS

BELGRADE, Sept 10 (Hina) - Croatian President Stjepan Mesic and the Chairman of the Assembly of Serbia and Montenegro, Dragoljub Micunovic, said on Wednesday that both countries shared the goal of joining the European Union, and that good neighbourly relations and cooperation between countries in the region could contribute to achieving this goal. #L# "This exceptionally substantive and pleasant meeting has shown that there is no such problem that cannot be solved through dialogue," Micunovic told reporters after talks with the Croatian president. Micunovic stressed that it was most important to heal the wounds and create new relations. "We have the same goal: to join the European Union, and the better relations we build in the region, the sooner we will enter the European Union," he said. "We all share the goal of a united Europe, and we can help one another if we step up the pace towards Europe. It is up to Europe then to recognise whether we have met their standards or not, and whether we will be recognised by other European countries as democratic and progressive societies," Mesic said. The Croatian leader said that business companies on both sides had shown that they wanted to cooperate and that the economies of both countries were largely compatible. He added that cooperation should be expanded to include areas such as culture and sport. "Sport should be left to athletes, and I hope that we will not see a repetition of incidents that occurred recently," Mesic said. "We must face the fact that some wrong decisions were made in the past, and that some people did some unlawful things. It is necessary for Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks to establish individual responsibility for crimes and name those responsible. This will relieve communities as a whole of responsibility and open the door to cooperation. This has to be done by us, our own justice systems, or by the Hague tribunal," the Croatian president said. Asked what sort of response he expected in Croatia after he and the President of Serbia and Montenegro, Svetozar Marovic, exchanged apologies for wrongdoings done to citizens of both countries in the past, Mesic said that this was necessary for the sake of the future of people in both countries, and that no attention should be paid to those who took it maliciously. On Wednesday afternoon, Mesic and numerous members of the Croatian delegation are scheduled to meet the Acting President of Serbia and President of the Serbian Parliament, Natasa Micic, Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Zivkovic, representatives of the Croatian minority, and representatives of organisations in charge of the return of refugees to Croatia. Mesic arrived in Belgrade earlier on Wednesday for a day-long official visit, the first such visit of a Croatian head of state since the breakup of the former Yugoslav federation. (hina) vm