RACAN-ORBAN: CROATIA SHOULD JOIN HUNGARY-ITALY-SLOVENIA TRILATERAL

BUDAPEST, March 18 (Hina) - The premiers of Croatia and Hungary on Saturday agreed Croatia should join the Italy-Slovenia-Hungary trilateral, and held talks on strengthening Croatian-Hungarian economic relations. Croatia's Ivica Racan and Hungary's Viktor Orban held talks in Budapest, where they are attending a two-day conference which gathers government heads of countries neighbouring the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Racan and Orban "have practically agreed to expand the trilateral co-operation among Italy, Slovenia, and Hungary to a quadrilateral including Croatia," Zsolt Szabo, a state secretary at the Hungarian Foreign Ministry, told the press after the Racan-Orban talks. The two premiers also expressed interest in the two countries' joint participation in the capital construction of Croatia's Rijeka harbour. "We shall see if we shall enter this through means existing in the Stability Pact (for Southeast Europe) or not. There is no agreement on the matter at present," Racan told the press speaking about modalities of joint investing in the Rijeka harbour. He said Croatia and Hungary were both agreed to introduce a different regime of border crossings, requiring only identity cards. Concrete talks on the matter should be held by the two interior ministries. Racan and Orban also talked about strengthening tourist co- operation. "We are interested in Hungarian tourists, and it is logical that Hungary should be interested in new investments in Croatia's tourism and participating in the further privatisation of tourist objects in Croatia," said Racan. He announced concrete modalities of co-operation would be discussed in a month, when he should officially visit Hungary at the head of a Croatian delegation. (hina) ha