BRIEF NEWS BULLETIN IN ENGLISH NO. 4779 HINA Zagreb, 21 October 2002

HR-POLITCS-Politika BRIEF NEWS BULLETIN IN ENGLISH NO. 4779 HINA Zagreb, 21 October 2002 EU MINISTERS MORE LENIENT WITH CROATIA THAN ANNOUNCEDLUXEMBOURG, Oct 21 (Hina) - At a meeting in Luxembourg on Monday, the foreign ministers of the European Union relayed strong encouragement to Croatia to cooperate with the Hague-based international war crimes tribunal, thus reiterating their stance, but without exerting any additional pressures on Croatia. In a text of conclusions adopted by the Council of Ministers, Croatia is mentioned only in two sentences -- in the section about the Western Balkans and in the paragraph "Cooperation with ICTY". In the section, all countries in the region are called on to fully cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), regardless of their national judiciary. This part of the conclusions was adopted without a discussion. The Council has confirmed that cooperation with the tribunal was an obligation of all countries and