CRO, YU DISCUSS RETURN, PROPERTY RESTITUTION, TENANTS' RIGHTS

DVORAC BEZANEC, Nov 23 (Hina) - The exchange of information on the number of returnees and refugees and the restitution of private property were the subject of a meeting between Croatian and Yugoslav government commissions for refugees held in Croatia on Friday. Participants brought up the issue of restoring tenants' rights which was not on the agenda, but has been mentioned in the media frequently in the past several days as the most important subjects for talks. "We discussed issues preventing the return of refugees from Yugoslavia to Croatia, and we started the issue of restoring tenants' rights. For the first time, the issue has been put on the agenda. We hope to discuss it in greater detail during the next meetings," Yugoslav President's advisor for refuges, Petar Ladjevic, said after the talks. According to him, the Yugoslav side stressed that this was one of crucial issues of return, and the Croatian side said that a large part of tenants' rights was possible to be restored under the existing laws. Assistant Croatian Construction, Reconstruction and Public Works Minister in charge of refugees, returnees and displaced persons, Lovro Pejkovic, said that it had been agreed that in line with abilities and the Law on Areas of Special Government Care, returnees who are former bearers of tenants' rights and who wish to return, but have no other property, will be taken care of in the accommodation sense. "There are 13,000 cases where applications for returning from Bosnia-Herzegovina and Yugoslavia have been granted, but we do not know exactly how many people truly returned. We thus need to first establish the real number of returnees and refugees," Pejkovic said. The regional UNHCR coordinator for South-East Europe, Werner Blatter, concluded that the meeting was open and frank, but could not result in crucial and important decisions since this was only the first three-hour meeting regarding the return of refugees and displaced persons. (hina) lml