MEETING OF YUGO & CRO OFFICIALS IN CHARGE OF ESTABLISHMENT OF FATE OF MISSING ENDS

BELGRADE, Nov 22 (Hina) - A two-day meeting of Yugoslav and Croatian officials in charge of the search for missing persons, ended on Wednesday in Belgrade. The head of the Yugoslav commission for humanitarian issues and missing persons, Maksim Korac, and the head of the Croatian Government's Office for missing and detained persons, Ivan Grujic, positively assessed their two-day meeting. They told a news conference that the number of persons whom they sought was falling, and announced more intensive cooperation. Maksim Korac told reporters that during the latest meeting they had exchanged 500 documents which could help solve about a hundred cases. Korac added that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was still searching for 2,701 persons and that it was expecting the exhumation of 1,300 dead people. He complained about the different interpretation of the agreed swap of prisoners on the principle "all for all", as Croatia insisted that the principle should not be applied on war criminals. He also warned that the apprehension of Croatian Serb returnees, intensified in recent months, affected the return of refugees or even prompted Serb returnees to flee Croatia again. Korac expressed hope the issue would be settled at talks which foreign ministers and governments of two countries should hold. Despite some problems, Korac described his meeting with Grujic as "successful and encouraging for the future work". Ivan Grujic told reporters that the Croatian Government maintained that top priority should be given to efforts aimed at shedding more light on destiny of missing people and therefore Zagreb had ensured material and personnel resources for the resolution of this issue. Grujic reiterated that in 1991 his country searched for 18,000 missing persons. Of them, 7,500 have been freed from (Serb) prisons and concentration camps, about 3,700 have been exhumed from mass graves and at the moment the list of missing persons contained names of 1,571 people. Grujic added that all documents signed by Zagreb and Belgrade explicitly read out that persons indicted or convicted of war crimes could not be released. He reminded reporters that Croatia had set free 20,616 persons against whom charges were pressed but they were not about war crimes. He stressed that there were still five Croatians in Yugoslav prisons although they were not convicted of war crimes. Grujic underlined Croatia's firm stance that war criminals must answer for their deeds. Grujic also pointed to differences in the data about persons whose whereabouts had been unknown since the 1995 operations "Flash" and "Storm" when Croatia liberated a vast part of its occupied areas. Yugoslavia has data about 2,085 missing persons, Croatia has estimated that 1,001 went missing then, while the ICRC list includes names of 709 persons, and according to the Croatian official, this shows that data are not reliable. Therefore it has been decided that a new list be made with the ICRC assistance, families who search their dearest ones and the Yugoslav commission. Grujic said the Croatia office in charge of the search for missing persons would check some concrete information it had obtained during the Belgrade meeting and this could expedite a process of delivery of remains of at least 300 people who had been taken from Croatia, killed and buried at various sites in Yugoslavia. (hina) ms