INTELLIGENCE SERVICES WILL BE ASKED WRITTEN REPORTS ON CONFLICT

ZAGREB, Nov 4 (Hina) - Parliament's Committee on Internal Affairs and National Security will request the Office for National Security (UNS) and the Service for the Protection of the Constitutional Order (SZUP) to submit written reports in the wake of their leaders' public conflict over the competence of the two intelligence services, committee chairwoman Djurdja Adlesic said on Saturday. "Next week I will consult my colleagues and request complete written reports. Then we shall see if there is reason to convene a committee session," Adlesic told Hina. "We shall not allow to be dragged into conflicts. Our work is stipulated by law and the rule book and we shall work without alignment," she said, asserting the public was being unnecessarily burdened with conflicts within intelligence services. The Croatian Democratic Union, the strongest opposition party, today urged the parliamentary committee to convene a session and parliament to debate the work of said services, stating their leaders' mutual accusations "seriously endanger the internal security of the country." According to unofficial sources, the committee might convene on Tuesday. On Friday, Mladen Lackovic, the head of UNS, the umbrella organisation among else in charge of controlling intelligence services, accused SZUP, which operates as part of the interior ministry, of denying it permission to supervise the enforcement of measures for secret data gathering. SZUP's head Franjo Turek immediately countered by saying it was a "tendentious lie." Interior Minister Sime Lucin told Zagreb's Radio 101 today that SZUP had nothing against UNS' supervision of measures for secret data gathering, which includes the wire-tapping of citizens, claiming the matter was under the competence of a three-member state commission, which parliament appointed last May. The commission, which comprises Antun Blazincic, Ante Jelavic- Mitrovic, and Josip Kregar, should among else supervise whether police and their services wire-tap citizens within the law. Jelavic-Mitrovic refused to speak to the press, and Kregar briefly told Hina he would do so on Sunday, albeit only on his behalf, since the commission had neither chairman nor spokesman. Asked to comment on the dispute before departing for Rome on Saturday, President Stipe Mesic said it "will be best if both services work exclusively according to the law." "The issue has to be solved by someone in the hierarchy, because I certainly can't," he said. Asked if it was correct that state officials were being wire- tapped, himself included, Mesic said: "There is no such suspicion and I don't know where this information comes from." Parliamentary speaker Zlatko Tomcic believes this latest conflict was entirely unnecessary. He said today it was an attempt to assume the best position before the constitution was changed. "It is completely immaterial, as the process of preparing constitutional amendments has been completed. On Nov. 8 we open a parliamentary debate and I am almost completely sure that we shall have a very high percentage of consensus and adopt... the amendments," said Tomcic. He reminded it had been agreed the president of state, as the supreme commander, should supervise the military component of intelligence services, and the government over civil ones. "To avoid unnecessary debates on the passing of laws in the future, this should be included in the constitution right away as the division of powers between the president of the republic and the government," he said. (hina) ha