FIRST DEPUTY PRIME MINISTERS MEETS FAMILIES OF MISSING, DETAINED

ZAGREB, Jan 30 (Hina) - Croatia's First Deputy Prime Minister Goran Granic on Tuesday held talks with representatives of the Association of the Families of Missing and Detained Croatian Soldiers, who wanted to discuss accelerating the DNA identification of soldiers' remains in laboratories in Zagreb, Osijek and Split. Granic said the Government's Office for Missing and Detained Persons would provide equipment and help overcome problems so that this year's identification process was made more successful, the Association's president Josip Jugec said after the meeting. The head of the Government Office, Colonel Ivan Grujic, said the newly-established office would help accelerate the search process and the identification of mass graves as well as facilitate contacts with the Yugoslav authorities. The government has set aside eight million kuna for that purpose this year, which is enough for the successful implementation of the identification process in laboratories, he said. This will be sufficient also for the provision of additional equipment and resolution of all technical and personnel problems which the laboratories are currently facing, Grujic said. According to data from the Office for Missing and Detained Persons, Croatia is still searching for 1,567 persons. Most of them went missing in 1991 and most missing persons are from the Croatian Danube River region, Vukovar-Srijem County and Sisak-Moslavina County. (hina) rml