PARIS, May 11 (Hina) - Paris-based daily papers Le Figaro and La Croix on Thursday ran extensive interviews with Croatia's President Stipe Mesic, who arrived in the French capital for a two-day official visit earlier today. In both
interviews, President Mesic said the main problems Croatia was facing were of an economic nature, and that Croatia expected French support in shortening deadlines for integration into European structures. "Croatia is in full depression and its economy has been ruined. We are drafting a law which should make revival possible, incite our trade with the West," President Mesic told Le Figaro. "Our goal is to sign the agreement on stabilisation and association with (the European Union) by year's end at the latest," he told La Croix. In the same interview, he called the current level of Croatian-French relations as "insufficient", especially in terms of trade and direct French private inve
PARIS, May 11 (Hina) - Paris-based daily papers Le Figaro and La
Croix on Thursday ran extensive interviews with Croatia's
President Stipe Mesic, who arrived in the French capital for a two-
day official visit earlier today.
In both interviews, President Mesic said the main problems Croatia
was facing were of an economic nature, and that Croatia expected
French support in shortening deadlines for integration into
European structures.
"Croatia is in full depression and its economy has been ruined. We
are drafting a law which should make revival possible, incite our
trade with the West," President Mesic told Le Figaro.
"Our goal is to sign the agreement on stabilisation and association
with (the European Union) by year's end at the latest," he told La
Croix.
In the same interview, he called the current level of Croatian-
French relations as "insufficient", especially in terms of trade
and direct French private investments in Croatia.
La Croix ran the Mesic interview under the headline "France Has to
Assist Us Economically."
"All documents will be submitted to the ICTY (The Hague-based
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia). No
secret, whether state or military, must protect a war criminal,"
Croatia's President answered Le Figaro's question on Croatia's
cooperation with the ICTY.
Asked about the essence of his criticism of Croatia's former
president, the late Franjo Tudjman, Mesic said Tudjman had been
"impressed by (Yugoslav President, Slobodan) Milosevic's
'successes' at the beginning of (last decade's) war and wanted to
profit from that situation."
"He said 'If all Serbs live in one state, then all Croats should live
in another state.' Both imagined they could write history at the
expense of the nations in Bosnia-Herzegovina," Mesic said.
Croatia's President agreed with the assessment that Tudjman had
been "just a pale follower of Milosevic's," adding "one programmed
a Greater Serbia, and the other a Greater Croatia."
Le Figaro headlined the Mesic interview "Milosevic Could End Up
Hanged by His Own People."
"Milosevic operated as a criminal who had succeeded in politics. He
planned a war, ordered massacres (...) The moment Serbia's
Opposition starts rebuking Milosevic for starting, and not losing
the war, that will be a big step," Croatia's President told Le
Figaro.
(hina) ha mm