BRIDGE LINKING ILOK AND BACKA PALANKA REOPENED

ILOK, April 30 (Hina) - Croatian Transport and Communications Minister Mario Kovac on Tuesday re-opened an 825-meter-long bridge over the Danube river linking the Croatian town of Ilok and Backa Palanka in Yugoslavia, which was damaged in the NATO attacks on Yugoslavia in 1999. The Croatian government invested two million kuna in the reconstruction of the bridge. #L# Attending the opening ceremony along with Kovac and officials of Vukovar-Srijem County and Ilok municipality were Croatia's general consul in Subotica, Jasmina Kovacevic, and officials of the autonomous province of Vojvodina, headed by the president of the province's assembly, Nenad Canak, and municipal officials from Backa Palanka. It is good that Croatia is building and repairing bridges linking it with its neighbours, Minister Kovac said at the ceremony that was held at the Croatian section of the bridge, adding that he did not only mean "bridges made of concrete", but bridges of political, economic, and cultural cooperation too. Vojvodina Assembly president Nenad Canak said the opening of the bridge was an exceptionally important event for people on both sides of the border. "The normalisation of traffic is a precondition for the normal living of people in this region," Canak said, adding that a better neighbourly cooperation between Yugoslavia and Croatia required a less strict visa regime. "Our relations with Croatia are different from our relations with other neighbouring countries, because much evil was done in this part of Croatia between 1991 and 1995, mostly by the Novi Sad corps," Canak said, adding that the two countries should discuss obstacles to the normalisation of relations in an open and sincere manner. Asked about the status of the Croat national minority in Vojvodina, Canak said that the democratic authorities in the Vojvodina Assembly "have done all they could to prevent Vojvodina Croats from feeling like second-class citizens". He announced that on May 8 the Assembly would discuss changes to the province's statute under which the Croatian language would become an official language in Vojvodina, along with Serbian, Hungarian, Slovak, Romanian and Ruthenian. Canak also announced the establishment of the publishing house "Hrvatska rijec", which is to publish in Croatian. (hina) rml sb