ZAGREB, March 22 (Hina) - Commenting on a recent visit to Russia, the chairman of the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, Zdravko Tomac, has told reporters Russia wants to assume greater responsibility for stability in South-East
Europe and in that regard sees Croatia as a partner.
ZAGREB, March 22 (Hina) - Commenting on a recent visit to Russia,
the chairman of the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee,
Zdravko Tomac, has told reporters Russia wants to assume greater
responsibility for stability in South-East Europe and in that
regard sees Croatia as a partner. #L#
During the visit, which lasted several days, members of the Foreign
Affairs Committee held talks with officials at the Russian
parliament, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, local authorities in
St. Petersburg, and representatives of the Russian Academy of
Sciences.
Tomac said the talks tackled bilateral relations, the situation in
the region and Russia's new policy towards the Balkans, as well as
Russia's new role in the international politics.
"Within its partnership policy with the West Russia wants to
contribute, together with the EU, to stability in South-East Europe
and sees Croatia as a partner in that process," Tomac told reporters
on Friday.
He announced that a Croatian parliamentary delegation would visit
Russia in June, following a visit by President Stjepan Mesic in
April.
Tomac said that the two sides had concluded in very open talks on the
situation in the Balkans that the international community was
trying to maintain the "status quo" now that the concept of
multiethnic states had failed and the process of further
fragmentation was uncertain.
"This means that the international community will not decide on the
radical enforcement of constitutional changes on all three Bosnian
peoples being constituent throughout the country, which is bad news
for Croatia and the Croat people," Tomac said. He said he feared
that the constitutional changes would not be implemented in both
entities and that Republika Srpska would remain an ethnically clean
entity.
The head of the parliamentary Sub-Committee for Relations with the
European Parliament, Ivo Skrabalo, informed reporters about a
visit to the European Parliament on Wednesday and Thursday. He
stressed that the two sides had agreed that Croatia's Agreement on
Stabilisation and Association was the first step towards the
fulfilment of the country's ambitions to join the EU.
Skrabalo said that the EU officials had made it clear that the pace
and manner of implementation of the Agreement were crucial for the
dynamics of rapprochement with the EU, he said.
(hina) rml