SARAJEVO, Aug 16 (Hina) - The international community's High Representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Wolfgang Petritsch, said on Thursday his priorities in the last year of his mandate as High Representative would remain unchanged. My
priorities will continue to be the return of refugees, economic reforms and the strengthening of the state institutions of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Petritch told a news conference in Sarajevo. The Austrian diplomat took over the office of High Representative, in charge of the implementation of the Dayton peace agreement, in August 1999, and the country's Peace Implementation Council recently prolonged his mandate by another year, nominating at the same time Paddy Ashdown, a former leader of Britain's Liberals, his successor. Petritsch believes there is no special reason to change the basic commitments because important changes, which have contributed to the country's stabilisation, have been ac
SARAJEVO, Aug 16 (Hina) - The international community's High
Representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Wolfgang Petritsch, said on
Thursday his priorities in the last year of his mandate as High
Representative would remain unchanged.
My priorities will continue to be the return of refugees, economic
reforms and the strengthening of the state institutions of Bosnia-
Herzegovina, Petritch told a news conference in Sarajevo.
The Austrian diplomat took over the office of High Representative,
in charge of the implementation of the Dayton peace agreement, in
August 1999, and the country's Peace Implementation Council
recently prolonged his mandate by another year, nominating at the
same time Paddy Ashdown, a former leader of Britain's Liberals, his
successor.
Petritsch believes there is no special reason to change the basic
commitments because important changes, which have contributed to
the country's stabilisation, have been achieved in the past two
years.
The situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina has dramatically changed in
relation to August 1999, Petritsch told reporters, stressing the
most important change was the fact that political forces in power
during the war were no longer in power and that the return of
refugees had been accelerated, even in those parts of the country,
such as eastern Bosnia, where refugee returns had been impossible
before.
It is also important that Franjo Tudjman and Slobodan Milosevic,
the two most important players in the drama of the former
Yugoslavia, have left the political scene, he said, adding Croatia
and Yugoslavia now fully supported the Dayton agreement and
Bosnia's sovereignty.
The High Representative admitted that some negative events had
lessened his results, particularly the violence of Serb extremists
in Banja Luka and Trebinje.
Petritsch warned that this was an indicator that people in the
Bosnian Serb entity still had a wrong perception of reality and
added such behaviour would discourage foreign investors and only
worsen the already bad economic situation in the entity.
He criticised the conduct of the Croatian Democratic Union of
Bosnia-Herzegovina (HDZ BiH) but expressed confidence that more
and more Bosnian Croats were beginning to realise that the path the
party had chosen was wrong.
Petritsch also announced closer partnership with the incumbent
Bosnian authorities, admitting that neither he nor his office were
infallible.
He called on the media to continue following his work critically but
was adamant that none of his decisions was motivated by personal or
business interests.
I am in no way connected to Siemens or any other mobile
telecommunications operator, Petritsch said commenting on
accusations in some media.
(hina) rml