CRO PRESIDENT MESIC RECEIVES REPS OF NATIONAL MINORITIES COUNCIL

ZAGREB, May 10 (Hina) - Croatian President Stipe Mesic on Wednesday received a delegation of the National Minorities Council, a non- government organisation which includes one representatives each from among Croatia's 15 national minorities. President Mesic said the talks were on problems of national minorities in general and concrete problems that Croatia's national minorities were faced with. The so far work of the Croatian Government's Office for National Minorities was assessed negatively, and President Mesic said the were a lot of complaints about the work of the Office. The delegation presented Mesic with a new organisation of the Office, and the President promised he would try to solve the problem in consultation with the Government. According to president of the National Minority Council Sanja Zoricic-Tabakovic, the talks were also on the change of the Constitutional Law on the rights of minorities, which the Croatian National Sabor's House of Counties on Tuesday refused to include in its agenda, because the House of representatives discussed it before the House of Counties voted its opinion. Zoricic-Tabakovic said that bill on amendments to the Constitutional law included smaller changes from those requested by the Council. (hina) it mm