LJUBLJANA, Aug 21 (Hina) - Slovene state television on Tuesday evening aired a round table debate on the burning issue of the sea border between Slovenia and Croatia in Piran Bay.
LJUBLJANA, Aug 21 (Hina) - Slovene state television on Tuesday
evening aired a round table debate on the burning issue of the sea
border between Slovenia and Croatia in Piran Bay. #L#
According to the participants in the debate, incidents in the
contentious part of the bay will be possible even after the part of a
Croatian-Slovene agreement on local border traffic referring to
fishing has come into force, unless in the meantime it is
established which Slovene fishing boats may cross the demarcation
line in the bay, only those with permits or all.
The Croatian sides was represented by the chairwoman of the
Croatian section of an inter-state commission for the
implementation of the local border traffic agreement, Olga
Kresovic Rogulja, international maritime law expert Davorin
Rudolf, and MP Damir Kajin.
On the Slovene side were the co-chairman of the Slovene part of the
commission, Benjamin Lukman, Koper lawyer Daniel Starman, and
publicist Franco Juri.
According to the Slovenes, once the fishing part of the agreement
has come into force, a free fishing regime throughout Piran Bay
should be applied for all Slovene fishermen. The Croats said that
only fishermen with permits envisaged in the agreement should cross
the demarcation line, which would include five trawlers and 20
other fishing boats.
The television debate also focused on the ratification of an
initialled border deal. Here, too, the two sides differed in their
views.
Rudolf denied Starman's assertion that the Ivica Racan cabinet with
its current position was continuing "Franjo Tudjman's policy" in an
attempt to "make Slovenia a disabled state". Rudolf said that
nobody in Croatia had ever claimed that the entire Piran Bay was
under Croatian sovereignty.
Speaking about the history of Slovene-Croatian negotiations on
border demarcation on the sea and the land border regime, Rudolf
said that he himself, as a former member of Croatian delegations,
had offered Slovenia the best possible solutions.
He recalled there had been talk about condominium (joint rule by two
or more states), free passage for Slovene boats through Croatian
waters, and making the border regime completely liberal as is the
practice among the Benelux countries.
Attorney Starman labelled such claims as "pure romanticism" which
did not settle matters. He asserted that Piran Bay was Slovenia's
"internal sea" and that Slovenia, following failed attempts to
settle the sea border issue with Croatia on a bilateral level,
should launch a multilateral initiative with Bosnia-Herzegovina
and Montenegro.
Croatian MP Kajin recalled that the Slovene parliament had waited
with the ratification of the local border traffic deal for four
years, whereas Croatia had approved it at once. He maintained this
agreement did not entirely settle the issues faced by citizens in
border areas, particularly in Istria. The agreement goes "below the
standards" these citizens enjoyed in line with the Udine Agreement
between Italy and the ex-Yugoslav federation, said Kajin.
(hina) ha sb