STUDY ON STRATEGY OF NATIONAL SECURITY TO BE COMPLETED BY LATE MAY

ZAGREB, May 2 (Hina) - A team of Croatian experts in charge of drawing up a Strategy of National Security of the Republic of Croatia should complete the study by the end of May, the team's head, Ozren Zunec, told reporters in Zagreb on Wednesday. Zunec made the statement after a meeting with officials from the ministries of defence, internal affairs, the National Security Office, the Service for the Protection of the Constitutional Order, the Armed Forces' Main Staff and the parliamentary Committee on National Security. The experts acquainted officials from the institutions of national security with the study, which includes some 20 projects from Croatia's development strategy entitled "Croatia in the 21st Century", Zunec said. He added that the study would be handed to the government, which ordered it, and presented to the public. The team now faces the definition of a set of issues, referring primarily to the area of national security, which, Zunec says, must be separated from state security. National security should not be based on the army and secret services but rather on defence and the protection of basic social values, he stressed. Zunec pointed to the need to educate citizens about what national security represents. "National security is defined as the protection of social values, that is, what people believe is right and good and what is confirmed as such," he said. "We must not allow a situation where national security would be opposed to the citizens," he added. Zunec fears that the important issues will be overshadowed by the issue of who controls secret services, which he believes is a serious obstacle to establishing a system of national security. (hina) rml