FIRST VICE PREMIER MEETS FAMILIES OF MISSING, IMPRISONED

ZAGREB, Dec 27 (Hina) - Croatia's First Deputy Prime Minister Goran Granic on Wednesday met a delegation of the Association of the Families of Missing and Imprisoned Croatian Soldiers, the Government's public relations office said in a statement. With the aim of improving its operation and securing additional funds, in September 2000 the Croatian government adopted a regulation on the reorganisation of the Commission for Missing and Imprisoned Croatian Citizens into an office. This helped create conditions for speeding up the process of identification of victims. In the past two months, 500 blood samples were analysed, which is a precondition for the establishment of a DNA base. The current organisation of work will make it possible for 300 DNA analyses to be carried out next year. The two sides concluded that the search for missing persons and the identification of mass and individual grave sites would in the coming years depend on the cooperation of Croatian Serb citizens as well as on information obtained from Yugoslavia, which is a precondition for the normalisation of relations as defined by the Government's Declaration on Relations with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The delegation pointed to problems the families of missing persons were encountering and expressed dissatisfaction with the pace at which war crimes were being processed. The two sides agreed to hold regular meetings with the aim of exchanging information and improving the search process. Croatia is still searching for 1,567 citizens who went missing during the aggression on the country. So far, 126 mass and a number of individual grave sites have been discovered with the remains of 3,197 victims, of whom 2,552 have been identified. Today's meeting was also attended by Lieutenant Ivan Grujic, head of the Government Office for Missing and Imprisoned Citizens, the statement read. (hina) rml