SISAK/HRVATSKA KOSTAJNICA, Oct 19 (Hina) - Croatian police are carrying out a regular and normal control of the border with Republika Srpska by the Una River bridge in Hrvatska Kostajnica, and are not stepping up the control,
Sisak-Moslavina County police spokesman Petar Masic said on Friday commenting on information that Bosnian Serbs had stepped up police control on the Una bridge in reaction to allegedly the same measures by the Croatian police. "The situation in Hrvatska Kostajnica is normal, people live and work normally, there are no tensions around the state border and the Una River bridge," Mayor Davor Govorcinovic told Hina. Police spokesman Masic dismissed as "untruthful and tendentious" the claims by the municipal commissioner of the (Bosnian) Srpska Kostajnica, Drago Bundalo, that Croatian police had increased mobilisation in Sisak-Moslavina County. "The situation on the state border is regular, there was no police mobilisa
SISAK/HRVATSKA KOSTAJNICA, Oct 19 (Hina) - Croatian police are
carrying out a regular and normal control of the border with
Republika Srpska by the Una River bridge in Hrvatska Kostajnica,
and are not stepping up the control, Sisak-Moslavina County police
spokesman Petar Masic said on Friday commenting on information that
Bosnian Serbs had stepped up police control on the Una bridge in
reaction to allegedly the same measures by the Croatian police.
"The situation in Hrvatska Kostajnica is normal, people live and
work normally, there are no tensions around the state border and the
Una River bridge," Mayor Davor Govorcinovic told Hina.
Police spokesman Masic dismissed as "untruthful and tendentious"
the claims by the municipal commissioner of the (Bosnian) Srpska
Kostajnica, Drago Bundalo, that Croatian police had increased
mobilisation in Sisak-Moslavina County.
"The situation on the state border is regular, there was no police
mobilisation and there is a container at the border point in which
two border police officials are deployed," he said.
Accusing the Bosnian Serb entity's local authorities of increasing
tensions, Govorcinovic said the area between the Una and Uncica
rivers has always been Croatian territory. "The state border with
Bosnia-Herzegovina has always been on the Uncica, not the Una as
Serbs claim ... the area is in the cadastral and land registry
ownership of the residents of Hrvatska Kostajnica and the Republic
of Croatia," he asserted.
"The inter-state border agreement was signed in Sarajevo in 1999
and the region is indisputably Croatian," Govorcinovic said,
adding that the opening of the reconstructed bridge over the Una,
financed by the international community, was expected for the end
of the month. He hoped that the border issue between Croatia and
Bosnia-Herzegovina in the area would be settled by then in
agreement with the international High Representative to Bosnia,
Wolfgang Petritsch, and through negotiations with Bosnia-
Herzegovina and Republika Srpska.
The Bosnian Serb side claims that the border agreement was signed,
but not ratified, and has therefore not come into effect. While the
Croatian side is announcing that its police and customs will open
new control points in Croatia after the Una bridge opens, the Serb
side is announcing it would not abandon its present locations and
will keep the new bridge under its control.
(hina) lml sb