CROATIA TO OFFICIALLY JOIN WTO IN TWO MONTHS AT LATEST - SAYS TOMCIC

ZAGREB, June 4 (Hina) - Croatia's parliament president Zlatko Tomcic told reporters in Zagreb on Sunday Croatia could officially join the World Trade Organisation within the next two months. "Croatia has successfully, step by step, worked towards joining the WTO, and we are all happy today about the impending access to that organisation, but difficulties await many entrepreneurs and businessmen because they will have to adapt to high world standards," Tomcic told reporters in Maksimir park. He pointed out Croatia must protect some strategic branches in the economy, especially agriculture, which he said could not adapt to world standards in a short time. Commenting on other topical issues, parliament's president said the leaders of the ruling six-party coalition eliminated mutual differences at a meeting last week, and that the coalition could forward a set of draft constitutional changes into parliament by the end of the month. Tomcic reiterated the ruling coalition advocated the non- dissolution of parliament's House of Counties, unlike Croatian President Stipe Mesic's team of experts. "There is an increasing awareness that young democracies must have intra-parliamentary control, and not have the president of state do it," Tomcic said. Constitutional changes must fortify the parliamentary system and local government and self-government, he added. Tomcic said he had not heard a statement by President Mesic according to which the perpetrators of last decade's war crime in Ahmici, a village in central Bosnia-Herzegovina, ought to be tried in BH. The place of trial is not the most important issue, Tomcic emphasised. A serious crime was committed in Ahmici, and the most important thing is that the perpetrators be punished, he added. (hina) ha