CROATIAN OFFICIAL BLAMES SARAJEVO FOR NON-ADOPTION OF PLOCE DEAL

SARAJEVO, Sept 17 (Hina) - A vice president of the Croatian parliament, Zdravko Tomac expressed regret in Sarajevo on Wednesday over the postponement of a final solution to the status of the southern Croatian seaport of Ploce, asserting that the Bosnian side exclusively was responsible for the delay. #L# After his meeting with Nikola Spiric, Bosnian parliament's House of Representatives chairman, Tomac, who led an eight-member parliamentary delegation on a two-day visit to Bosnia-Herzegovina, told reporters that the governments of the two countries had reached agreement on a protocol which should help remove disputable provisions of the Port Ploce Agreement, but the agreement had not been implemented. "The Bosnian side has, for reasons hard to understand, postponed the settlement of the issue for the time being," Tomac said. He added that it was unrealistic to expect the Croatian parliament to have the ratification of the Ploce Port as an item on its agenda this autumn before the coming parliamentary elections. Nikola Spiric said the joint orientation of the two countries' MPs was to support, in the proceedings of the adoption of pertinent laws, all solutions agreed upon by the two governments. Spiric and Tomac agreed hat the enhancement of bilateral cooperation and mutual confidence were the best proof of the two countries' commitment to European standards. Spiric said Bosnia did not oppose Croatia's intention to regulate its accession into the European Union through an individual rather than collective approach. The only condition is, he said, that attention should be paid to efforts aimed at settling open issues in the region. Tomac reiterated Croatia's official stand that the regional uniting as a sort of a waiting room for the purpose of joining the European integration processes would be the wrong approach to the detriment of all countries in the region. The two interlocutors hailed Croatian President Stjepan Mesic's initiative for a trilateral approach to the settlement of problems of refugees, in which Zagreb, Sarajevo and Belgrade should be actively engaged. The Croatian parliamentary delegation arrived in the Bosnian capital at the invitation of the Centre of Civil Initiative in Bosnia (CCI) to take part in a round table discussion on citizens' influence on legislation. (hina) ms