PM: CROATIA WILL JOIN INT. EFFORTS TO STOP CONFLICTS IN NEAR EAST

ZAGREB, April 10 (Hina) - Croatia will join efforts of other countries to stop the escalation of conflicts in the Near East, Prime Minister Ivica Racan said in the parliament on Wednesday.#L# Commenting on a question of MP Ante Kovacevic of the Croatian Party of Rights/Croatian Christian Democratic Union parliamentary bench about the Croatian government standpoint about Israel's aggression on Palestinian areas, Racan said the government had expressed concern about the escalation of conflicts on several occasions. "The government welcomes international pressure on Israel to withdraw from occupied Palestinian territory and solve the issue which represents a threat to peace in the Near East and the world," Racan said. MP Krunoslav Kordic of the Croatian Democratic Union asked the Prime Minister whether the government supported constitutional changes in Bosnia-Herzegovina, under which Croats are a national minority in relation to the other two peoples in the country. Racan said government representatives were conducting intensive talks with political representatives in Bosnia in order to reach a solution which would guarantee the equal status of all three peoples in Bosnia. "A step forward has been made but that is not enough. We expect international community representatives to continue to work in that direction and the Croatian government will remain determined in its requests," Racan said. He said Croatian government representatives would travel to Bosnia in the next several days and persist in political standpoints which protect the interest of the Croat people. The Prime Minister also commented on this weeks talk-show "Latinica", according to which his party sold a house in Slovenia in 1992 for US$2 million, transferred the money to the US and financed its electoral campaign in January 2000. Racan said these claims were not true. (Hina) it