MOSTAR, July 20 (Hina) - Croatia has forwarded a note of protest to Bosnia-Herzegovina insisting on the deployment of Croatian customs services between the Uncica and Una river, near the town of Hrvatska Kostajnica, at the border with
Bosnia, the Banja-Luka based daily "Nezavisne Novine" reported on Saturday.
MOSTAR, July 20 (Hina) - Croatia has forwarded a note of protest to
Bosnia-Herzegovina insisting on the deployment of Croatian customs
services between the Uncica and Una river, near the town of Hrvatska
Kostajnica, at the border with Bosnia, the Banja-Luka based daily
"Nezavisne Novine" reported on Saturday. #L#
The Bosnian state border service has recently deployed its members
instead of the Bosnian Serb entity's policemen who used to be
there.
Zagreb insists on the deployment of its border service "and asks
that within 24 hours the Bosnian state border service withdraw from
the current boundary line to the other bank of the Uncica and remove
its hurdles and containers," Bosnia's minister of civilian affairs
and communications, Svetozar Mihajlovic, was quoted by the daily as
saying.
On Friday the Croatian Foreign Ministry issued a statement
commenting on Thursday's meeting of the competent bodies of the two
countries in the town of Hrvatska Kostajnica who had discussed the
regulation of the joint border crossing near that Croatian town.
The two sides should have agreed on technical details on the opening
of the crossing at the joint location, on Croatian territory,
between the two rivers Una and Uncica near Hrvatska Kostajnica,
read the statement issued by the ministry.
The prerequisites for the meeting and agreement on further
activities were created on 13 July, with the deployment of members
of the Bosnian state border service and the withdrawal of police
officers of the Bosnian Serb entity. During the meeting on Friday,
Bosnia-Herzegovina's delegation, however, could not offer
assurances for the implementation of all the previous agreements
and therefore it was impossible for Croatian border police to
arrive at the area between the rivers Una and Uncica as well as and
for relevant factors to build necessary infrastructure for the
completion of the border crossing, read the statement.
That is why the Croatian foreign ministry has forwarded through
diplomatic channels a request to the Bosnian foreign ministry about
the evidence that Bosnian competent bodies, together with the
international community, will create the pre-conditions for the
final solution of the Hrvatska Kostajnica border crossing in
compliance with agreement, the Croatian ministry's statement
read.
According to Mihajlovic, the Bosnian Council of Ministers has not
yet taken an official stand on the matter, as it could not be
convened.
Bosnia's three-man Presidency is attentively following the
situation in the area of Kostajnica and is ready "to take all
necessary measures and activities in order to prevent possible
misunderstanding in the Zagreb-Sarajevo relation," the
Presidency's public relations official, Boris Kujundzic, was
quoted by "Nezavisne Novine" as saying.
On Friday, the Bosnian Serb entity's president, Mirko Sarovic,
asked the UN mission and International Police Task Force (IPTF) to
"discontinue pressure which they exert on the State Border Service
asking it to withdraw from the check-point on the bridge in
Kostajnica so that Croatia's police and border service could take
it over."
(hina) ms