COUNCIL OF EUROPE OFFICIALS ON VISIT TO BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

SARAJEVO, June 19 (Hina) - The highest officials of the Council of Europe on Saturday called on authorities in Bosnia-Herzegovina to intensify their efforts in fulfilling previously set conditions if they wanted the country to be admitted into the Council of Europe by the end of this year. The President of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers and Iceland's Foreign Minister, Halldor Asgrimsson, and Council of Europe's Secretary General Daniel Tarschys, who are on a three-day visit to Bosnia, said the country needed to improve cooperation between its joint bodies of authority, strengthen the rule of law and respect for human rights, and reform its judiciary, police and the schooling system, with the aim of eliminating further ethnic division. In a speech delivered at today's session of both houses of the country's parliament, Asgrimsson said the conditions set before Bosnia-Herzegovina had to be fulfilled if the country wished to become part of the European community of peoples, and those who did not want it, would remain isolated. Tarschys said further ethnic division could lead the country into a disaster, adding such attempts had to be resolutely dismissed. The chairman of the state Presidency, Ante Jelavic, said the admission of his country into the Council of Europe was the most important task of Bosnia's foreign policy. Jelavic promised the Presidency's full support for that task. The Premier of the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Edhem Bicakcic, who is heading Bosnia's delegation in the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly, told reporters he believed the country would become a full member of the Council of Europe by the end of 1999 or the beginning of 2000. The Council of Europe officials will stay in Bosnia-Herzegovina until Monday. On Wednesday, they are to submit a special report on the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina to the Parliamentary Assembly. (hina) rml