PM RACAN HOLDS LECTURE AT FRENCH INSTITUTE FOR INT. RELATIONS

PARIS, May 14 (Hina) - The strategic goals of Croatia's foreign policy are access to the European Union and NATO in which Zagreb would like to count on French support, Prime Minister Ivica Racan said at the French Institute for International Relations in Paris on Monday.#L# Racan began his working visit to Paris with a lecture on Croatian- French relations, the situation in Southeast Europe, and Croatia's development. Croatia's efforts in rapprochement with the EU will get a boost with today's initialling of a Stabilisation and Association Agreement in Brussels, he reminded. Racan also pointed to the important role France played in the creation of the new Europe, adding Croatia wanted to intensify ties with Paris. "We see France as a close business partner," he said. Stability and the reforms it has implemented have given Croatia "the role of a constructive partner in the promotion of peace and stability in the region, a role Croatia accepts with the utmost seriousness and responsibility," according to the prime minister. Speaking about the situation in the region, he said Croatia was interested in a sovereign and independent Bosnia whose three constituent peoples enjoy equal rights throughout the country. Racan conceded the region was still unstable despite the fall of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, as seen in the tensions erupting in Bosnia and Macedonia. He said the normalisation of the region called for the prosecution of all war crimes, and added the international community must apply equal criteria in stressing the need of cooperating with UN's war crimes tribunal in The Hague. Eminent French politicians and intellectuals were interested in the situation in the region, Croatia's views on possibilities of averting new conflicts, ways of dealing with refugee returns, and the incumbent government's position on the Franjo Tudjman decade. Racan said there still existed extremist forces on the Balkans which caused instability. "Tudjman was a slave to some 19th-century visions," he said, and added Croatia wanted to deal with some issues from its recent past without external pressure. To claims that Tudjman and Milosevic differed only in style, Racan said in Croatia Tudjman was never equated with Milosevic. He asserted the course of events in Serbia following the fall of Milosevic indicated that it had been easier to distance Serbia from its former head of state than from his policy. Speaking about refugee returns, Racan said it was an issue Croatia had to solve in cooperation with the other countries in the region. He said the government was resolute to close the issue by the end of next year. In the afternoon Racan is to hold talks with French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. (hina) ha