FOREIGN MINISTER GRANIC MEETS HIS MACEDONIAN COUNTERPART DIMITROV

SKOPJE, March 18 (Hina) - Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granic and his Macedonian counterpart, Aleksandar Dimitrov, held talks in Skopje on Thursday. Their talks revolved around the bilateral cooperation, the promotion of the economic ties and the situation in Croatia's and Macedonia's neighbouring countries. Minister Granic is conducting the two-day official visit to Macedonia which he commenced yesterday with the meeting with Macedonian Prime Minister Ljupco Georgijevski. On Thursday, Foreign Ministers of Croatia and Macedonia concluded that their countries had the same strategic aspirations - the entrance into NATO and the European Union. Considering the bilateral relations, Zagreb and Skopje will invest more efforts into the implementation of agreements in free trade as well as the property and legal relations. Macedonia is the only country out of the former Yugoslavia's successor-States, with which Croatia has signed these two treaties. It is necessary that the two countries' parliaments ratify the agreement on free trade in order to mount the 1998 100-million- dollar trade to planned 600 million dollars, which was the value of the commodity exchange between Croatia and Macedonia while they were members of the former Yugoslavia. Croatia and Macedonia are interested in the military and technological cooperation. Ministers Granic and Dimitrov discussed also the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the recent developments in Kosovo. After the Dimitrov-Granic meeting, the Macedonian Parliament's speaker, Savo Klimov received the Croatian Foreign Minister. At the end of his stay in Skopje, Granic will be received by Macedonian President Kiro Gligorov as well. (hina) ms