LATEST OSCE REPORT ON CROATIA COMMENDS HEADWAY

VIENNA, Dec 7 (Hina) - Croatia is making convincing headway in fulfilling its international obligations and the Croatian government is genuinely intent on persisting along that path, the chief of OSCE's Mission to Croatia said on Thursday. The Mission of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe to Croatia may be reduced, Bernard Poncet told OSCE's Permanent Council in Vienna. Every further positive step in fulfilling international obligations will result in fewer mission people in the country, he said. The United States have also requested reducing the number of OSCE staff in Croatia. Croatia's Ambassador to OSCE Mario Nobilo said the organisation's latest report on Croatia was positive "and reactions, especially those from the U.S. and the Russian Federation were very positive." Commenting on remarks that there were steps forward, albeit insufficient ones in connection with refugee and displaced person returns, Nobilo said Croatia produced at the Permanent Council a verified list of returnees, stating the names of all returnees, for instance 49,798 from Yugoslavia, 3,590 from Bosnia, and 22,658 who from the Danube River Region in eastern Croatia returned to their pre-war homes elsewhere. Nobilo said Croatia had no issues in cooperating with the international community or OSCE, but would like to negotiate and join the European Union as a country with no "monitoring". He added the current OSCE mission had more of an advisory character. (hina) ha