PALMER: OSCE MISSION AND CROATIA ARE FOCUSED ON SAME GOAL

VUKOVAR, Feb 11 (Hina) - Peter Palmer, spokesman for the OSCE Mission in Croatia, on Friday described statements by new Croatian government officials and their programme as positive and encouraging. Addressing a news conference at the OSCE coordination centre in Vukovar, Palmer said the OSCE Mission and the Croatian government were focused on the same goal and described the first steps taken by the new government and their statements as positive and encouraging. Palmer said the security situation in the Croatian Danube region was good because the number of ethnically motivated incidents had decreased considerably in the past year. In order to further normalise the situation in the region, one should improve the economic situation, he added. Asked whether the OSCE would criticise the new government the way it criticised the old one, which was headed by the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), Palmer said the OSCE did not judge authorities by whether they were old or new but by their policies. The OSCE criticised the HDZ government more often because progress in many areas was restricted and rather slow, he added. (hina) rml