BOSNIAN CROATIAN DEMOCRATIC UNION ON PETRITSCH'S STATEMENTS

MOSTAR, Jan 23 (Hina) - The consistent implementation of the Bosnian Constitutional Court's decision on all three peoples being constituent throughout the country and a symmetrical constitutional solution with full legislative powers for the House of Peoples in both entities are the necessary and main prerequisite for the establishment of a sustainable multiethnic Bosnia- Herzegovina, the presidency of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) of Bosnia-Herzegovina said at a session Wednesday. The party presidency today issued a statement strongly condemning "the most recent tactless statements" by High Representative Wolfgang Petritsch, in which, as the HDZ understands, Bosnian Croats have been stripped of their status of a constituent nation and reduced to a minority. Petritsch recently criticised a proposal by a former Croatian foreign minister, Mate Granic, that future constitutional changes in Bosnia-Herzegovina should include the establishment of a House of Peoples in Republika Srpska as well. Petritsch responded with a counter-proposal that Croatia, too, should establish a similar House of Peoples for Croatian Serbs. Petritsch's statement caused public revolt by several prominent Croatian politicians in Croatia and Bosnia, including the chairman of the Croatian parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, who said that similar concepts had caused the recent war. (hina) np