JANAF ON EVENTS IN CONNECTION WITH ARREST OF YUKOS CEO

RIJEKA, Oct 27 (Hina) - The head of the JANAF public relations office, Jakov Despot, has said that "back in early 2001 the current management of JANAF (Adriatic Oil Pipe-Line company) dismissed as unacceptable earlier concepts of implementation of the Druzba Adria project, which included the Russian oil company Yukos, and drew up a new concept, which was approved by the company's Supervisory Board". #L# Two days ago, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Yukos chief executive, was arrested as seven charges were brought against him by the Kremlin, ranging from tax fraud to the embezzlement of state funds. Yesterday, an environmentalist association from the Croatian island of Krk, called "Eko Kvarner", issued a press release in which it connected Yukos with the Druzba Adria project. Despot told Hina on Monday that Croatia and JANAF were entering the said project completely independently and that contracts were being signed with authorised transport companies from countries involved in the project and not with oil companies. According to Despot, this is proved with an agreement on cooperation in the implementation of the project of integration of the Druzba Adria oil pipeline, signed by several governments in Zagreb in December 2002. The project envisages the transport of oil from Russian oil fields to a terminal at Omisalj on the northern Croatian island of Krk, from where oil would be shipped by tankers. The countries engaged in the project are the Russian Federation, Belarus, Ukraine, Slovakia, Hungary and Croatia. The project also includes authorised oil transport companies from the said countries. Besides Khodorkovsky, some other senior officials of Yukos, which is Russia's biggest oil company, were arrested as well. (hina) ms sb