HDZ AGAIN DEMANDS REPLACEMENT OF VETERANS' MINISTER PANCIC

ZAGREB, June 28 (Hina) - The Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) on Wednesday again urged the replacement of Veterans' Minister Ivica Pancic in the wake of his statement that the former government in tacit agreement with Belgrade slowed down exhumations of killed Croatian soldiers and civilians. "That is the strongest and most monstrous accusation to date someone from the coalition government has said about the former authorities," Ivica Kostovic told a HDZ parliamentary bench news conference. According to Kostovic, who was deputy prime minister in Croatia's former, HDZ-led government, Pancic's accusation, consciously or not, is on the trace of Belgrade intelligence services' war propaganda. According to Jadranka Kosor, "such statements are directly aimed at discrediting (members of the former) HDZ government and an invitation to lynch its ministers." HDZ therefore demands that Prime Minister Ivica Racan's government apologise for Pancic's statements or come forward with evidence corroborating them. In parliament, HDZ has already initiated the issue of the vote of confidence in Minister Pancic in the wake of a recent revision of Homeland War veterans' disability benefits. While visiting the eastern Croatian town of Vukovar yesterday, Minister Pancic said that "owing to political reasons and tacit agreements with Belgrade, and in spite of verbally demanding stepping up the exhumation and identification processes, Croatia's former authorities were not doing what they should have to bring those processes to completion." According to the veterans' minister, this is "also proved by documentation which was found in Croatian intelligence services, taken over from so called Krajina (Serb rebel) authorities, where there is much data processed by the Serbs themselves, their police or hospitals, but which did not interest our services." (hina) ha mm