CROATIAN, SLOVENE GOVT. REPS. TO ATTEND SUNDAY'S UNOFFICIAL MEETING

LJUBLJANA, Jan 6 (Hina) - The state secretary at the Slovene Foreign Ministry, Magda Tovornik, and Croatia's Assistant Foreign Minister Josko Paro will attend Sunday's unofficial meeting between representatives of the Croatian and Slovene governments. The meeting will take place on the Slovene coast and has been organised by the Istrian Friendship Society (DIP), whose president Egidio Krajcar told Slovenia's news agency STA on Saturday that for the time being, the time and place of the meeting remained a secret. He added the media would be notified in due time. Late last year, DIP called on Slovene and Croatian officials to start tackling the ratification of a local border traffic agreement and the demarcation of the border, two open issues, as soon as possible. DIP also called on the two countries' governments to support the cooperation of Croatian, Slovene, and Italian municipalities within the Istrian euro-region. Istria is Croatia's largest peninsula, situated in the northern Adriatic and bordering on Slovenia. Slovenia's Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel on Thursday said he was willing to attend the Sunday meeting provided Croatian counterpart Tonino Picula were there too. The Croatian Foreign Ministry welcomed the initiative for cooperation on the local level, saying in a letter to DIP that a ministry representative would attend in sign of support to the meeting, but not a minister. Croatia believes open bilateral issues between Zagreb and Ljubljana should be solved as agreed before, first on an expert, then a ministerial level, and lastly between the two prime ministers, Foreign Ministry deputy spokesperson Miona Sevcik said on Friday. (hina) ha