PIRAN BAY: LATEST INCIDENT SOLVED THROUGH TALKS

UMAG, Sept 2 (Hina) - Two Slovene fishing-boats and two Slovene police boats on Monday afternoon sailed out of the Croatian territorial waters in Piran Bay. The Slovene boats entered 1.5 nautical miles deep into the Croatian waters at 11.00 hours Monday, head of the Istria police Marko Petkovic said. According to him, at around 15.00 hours there were a total of nine Croatian and two Slovene fishing-boats, as well as one Croatian and two Slovene police boats 1.5 nautical miles deep into the Croatian waters. The incident ended following negotiations. The president of the association of the Buje region fishermen, Daniele Kolec, told reporters that he and his Slovene counterpart Zlatko Novograded agreed to meet on Tuesday to try to establish future behaviour to avoid similar new incidents. Slovenia's news agency STA on Monday cited spokesman for the Slovene police Miran Koren as saying that Croatian fishermen and policemen entered a part of Piran Bay which is under the control of the Slovene police. Petkovic dismissed this claim, as well as the claim by Slovene fisherman Branet Grgurovic who said that seven Croatian trawl- boats entered the area controlled by the Slovene police and surrounded his boat. STA cited Gregurovic as saying that Croatian fishermen had shouted insults at him and prevented him from fishing. (hina) it sb