BOSNIAN SERB PREMIER OFFERS DEMOCRATISATION OF BH FOR BRCKO

( Editorial: --> 0967 ) VIENNA, Feb 11 (Hina) - The premier of the Bosnian Serb entity, Milorad Dodik, Tuesday told a Vienna-based international arbitration commission for Brcko that the fate of the Bosnian Serb Government depended on the fact whether, under a commission's decision, Brcko will become part of the Bosnian Serb entity or the Croat-Muslim Bosnian Federation. Dodik told the commission that Brcko, a town in north-eastern Bosnia, should both formally and legally belong to the Bosnian Serb entity. The premier dismissed any other solution as untenable and fatal for his pro-Dayton government. If the arbitration commission gives Brcko to Bosnian Serbs, Dodik promised 70,000 refugees would return to the Bosnian Serb entity within one year. "Give me Brcko, you will get the democratisation of Republika Srpska and Bosnia-Herzegovina", the Bosnian Serb premier said. The town of Brcko was occupied by the former Yugoslav People's Army and Bosnian Serbs in 1992, as the key section of a corridor connecting Serb-controlled territory in western Bosnia and Serbia. Before the conflict, Serbs accounted for 20 per cent of the population of Brcko and the Bosanska Posavina area in the north through which the corridor cuts. Brcko has strategic importance for Tuzla, a town on the territory of the Croat-Muslim federation, as well, because of a railroad connecting the town with central Europe. As the railroad passes through Brcko, Tuzla is in isolation. (hina) ha jn 111255 MET feb 98