CROATIA AND BOSNIA SIGN BORDER AGREEMENT

SARAJEVO, July 30 (Hina) - An agreement on the frontier between Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, signed in Sarajevo on Friday by Croatia's President Franjo Tudjman and Moslem member of Bosnia's three-man Presidency, Alija Izetbegovic, is based on decisions previously made by expert groups and within the inter-state diplomatic border commission, and it does not contain amendments proposed by Bosnian Serbs.#L# According to diplomatic circles in Sarajevo, Serb representatives in Bosnian authorities' bodies spared no effort, up to the last moment, that the text of the treaty may include an amendment which should prevent police of both countries from passing to the Una river's right or left bank respectively, until the ratification of the document. They also tried to push their demand that the border line by Hrvatska Kostajnica be changed and demarcated in the middle of the course of the Una river. A co-chairman of Bosnia's Ministerial Council, Svetozar Mihajlovic, on Friday told reporters in Sarajevo that the agreement was to the detriment of Bosnian Serbs and that's why he refused to attend the ceremony of signing the deal. He added that Serb member of the Bosnian Presidency, Zivko Radisic, had accepted the text of the agreement signed by Tudjman and Izetbegovic after talks with Croatia's representatives. After the border agreement was signed, signatories gave no statement to reporters. The fact that top officials of the two countries attended the ceremony of signing shows itself how much importance has been attached to this document. The treaty on the frontier was reached after Croatia's and Bosnia's expert groups had held negotiations for several months and exchanged data on all disputed spots on the border line as well as after numerous meeting at which they harmonised maps. By the conclusion of this treaty, conditions have been created for the start of demarcating the border line between the two states. (hina) ms