BOSNIAN AUTHORITIES HOPE SOLUTION WILL BE FOUND FOR UN MISSION

SARAJEVO, July 4 (Hina) - Bosnia-Herzegovina's authorities hope that agreement will be reached by 15 July on the continuation of the deployment of International Police Task Force (IPTF) which is a part of the United Nations Mission (UNMBiH) in that country. The UN mission has been brought into question by the United States Administration's insistence that US troops be excluded from the possibility of being prosecuted by the newly-established International Criminal Court (ICC). #L# The Bosnian Council of Ministers welcomes the UN Security Council's decision to extend the UNMBiH by 15 July, said the council's chairman Dragan Mikerevic who expressed his hope that it would be possible to find a solution in the following 12 days so that there would be no discontinuation in the work of the international police. Mikerevic said at a news conference that Bosnian officials were unanimous in the opinion that any abrupt withdrawal of the UN mission would be an inadmissible luxury regarding how many efforts and means had been invested in the stabilisation of peace in the country in the last six years. Not ruling out a possibility that the termination of the UN mission may happen before the end of this year when the European Union should take over the IPTF mission, the Bosnian top officials intensified contacts with the EU to accelerate the set-up of the EU police mission in the country. A spokesman for the Office of the High Representative to Bosnia, Patrik Volf, on Thursday said High Representative Paddy Ashdown also welcomed the Security Council's decision on the prolongation of the mandate. If it is particularly important in the light of preparations for the commemoration of victims of the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica, scheduled for 11 July, Volf said. (hina) ms