BRUSSELS: PICULA URGES ACCELERATED RESOLUTION OF PREVLAKA ISSUE

BRUSSELS, Dec 15 (Hina) - In his speech at a meeting of the Euro- Atlantic Partnership Council, Croatian Foreign Minister Tonino Picula on Friday in Brussels called upon the participants of the meeting to jointly contribute to the resolution of the Prevlaka issue at an accelerated and satisfactory pace during 2001. Speaking about the consequences of the changes in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) and their impact on the situation in the region, which is one of the topics of the meeting, Picula reminded that Croatia welcomed FRY's joining international organisations under a condition that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia admitted it was only one of the successor countries to the former Yugoslav federation. Croatia wants to solve all open issues between the two countries, including the issue of Prevlaka, where a United Nations monitoring mission is still active. In Croatia's opinion, Prevlaka was never a territorial, but a security issue, while the FRY presented the issue as a territorial. I believe it is in all of our interests to successfully end the monitoring mission in Prevlaka during 2001, therefore I am calling on you to contribute to an accelerated and satisfactory resolution of the issue, Picula stressed. He added that Croatia, even though encouraged by changes in the FRY, was still concerned about the fact that Milosevic continued to play an important role in Serbia's political life. Croatia is carefully observing the development of the situation in Serbia, in hope that democratic forces will win, Picula added. He reminded the present about the changes in Croatia and its position in foreign policy since early this year, and concluded that Croatia had, in a short time, become a permanent factor in international relations. Since Croatia's joining the Partnership for Peace programme (May 25, 2000), the country has participated in about 60 activities of the forum which enables its members to establish a model for political and military cooperation with NATO, aiming at preparations for membership. In 2001 the Croatian government is planning to start participating in NATO-led peace missions and continue to provide logistic support to the Stabilisation Force and the Kosovo Force. Speaking about security issues in Southeast Europe, Picula said there were still a series of problems jeopardising the stability. Croatia cannot deal with those problems alone and without logistic and financial assistance of the international community via the Stability pact and other regional projects. The Croatian Foreign Minister pointed to the unsolved issue of the succession to the former Yugoslavia, the existence of unregistered illegal weapons in the hands of citizens, illegal drug trade, people trafficking and the issue of illegal migrations toward western Europe. He also pointed to the unsolved issue of borders between newly established countries, a great number of mines, a wave of organised crime and corruption. Minister Picula reiterated Croatia's strategic goal, namely to join NATO, and expressed hope that by the next Euro-Atlantic partnership Council meeting Croatia would join countries aspiring to join NATO. (hina) it