HRT EDITOR-IN-CHIEF WILL NOT RESIGN AFTER ARRIVAL OF NEW DIRECTOR

ZAGREB, March 20 (Hina) - Croatian Television (HTV) editor-in- chief Obrad Kosovac said Monday he would not resign to his post. As he expects the future Croatian Radio Television (HRT) Council to relieve him of duty as editor-in-chief due to the arrival of new political powers, Kosovac said he would run as candidate for the new editor-in-chief pursuant to a public invitation to bid. He said he would not do this "in order to win, as this would be impossible, but to voice my ideas about the HTV's development in the future," Kosovac told reporters after Monday's handover and acceptance of the former and current HRT director Ivan Vrkic and Mirko Galic which he attended. Kosovac stressed he would not hold his dismissal as revanchism, but rather a change usual for a "new team" entry. Kosovac dismissed assessments of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) that the HTV news programmes edited by Kosovac had been exceptionally biased favouring the former Croatian Democratic Union authority. "The HTV is for the biggest part a public television ever since 1990, and until that time it was a communist, totalitarian television. I feel no liability or shame for not trying to make HTV a public television. I did what could be done in the given political circumstances," Kosovac said. He asserted the OSCE's assessments were in many segments founded on "hear-say". Facts have shown that "in cooperation with international monitors the HTV has in the past year had an exceptionally democratic programme which correlated with the democratic standards of European public televisions," Kosovac said. (hina) lml jn