BOSNIA: MINISTER INSISTS ON CROAT COMPONENT IN FEDERAL ARMY

SARAJEVO, June 24 (Hina) - The defence minister of the Bosnian Croat-Muslim Federation, Mijo Anic, insists on the preservation of the Croat and Bosniak (Muslim) components inside the federal army, and opposes Bosniak politicians' demands for the annulment of the two components. #L# According to a statement released by the federal defence ministry, Minister Anic on Monday forwarded a letter to Bosnia-Herzegovina's collective presidency's chairman, Beriz Belkic, notifying him that he would not accept the revocation of the components inside the federal army as long as there is no agreement on a single army at the state level. Currently, the two Bosnian entities - the Federation and the Serb republic - have their own armies. The federal army has two national components according to the 1994 Washington Agreement. Belkic was quoted by the Sarajevo-based daily "Dnevni Avaz" as saying that he could see no reason for the existence of the separate national components in the federal army. Anic, who is Croat and the federal minister, and his deputy, Ferid Buljubasic, who is Bosniak, have sent two separate proposals to the Croat and Muslim members of the Presidency about a new organisation of the federal army, as Anic and Buljubasic could not agree whether the federal army should in the future have separate national units. According to Anic's letter to Belkic, the federal minister reminded that he had supported the set-up of a joint army and a single defence ministry at the state level of Bosnia, but such a military could function without national components only if Bosnian Serbs agreed on such a proposal and joined the united army. For Anic, it is pointless to discuss the annulment of the components in the army of only one entity as such a move would make it impossible for Croats to enter, on equal footing, a process of the establishment of a single army in the entire Bosnia-Herzegovina. (hina) ms