CROATIA AUSTRIA & SLOVENIA TO HOLD TRILATERAL MEETING MARCH 26

( Editorial: --> 2012 ) ZAGREB, March 24 (Hina) - Foreign Ministers of Croatia, Slovenia and Austria will hold their first trilateral meeting in the south Croatian port of Dubrovnik Thursday, March 26. At the meeting Croatia's Mate Granic, Austria's Wolfgang Schuessel and Slovenia's Boris Frlec should determine areas of common interest. It is expected the Foreign Ministers will define projects aimed at the continuation of cooperation, and designate mixed groups for drafting these projects. The initiative to form this trilateral group came a year ago and was announced during Granic's visit to Vienna in April 1997. He and his Austrian counterpart Schuessel then emphasised the necessity of forming subregional ties within the Central European Initiative (CEI), this year chaired by Croatia, by creating the Vienna- Ljubljana-Zagreb group. One of Croatia's goals was a more intense bilateral and trilateral cooperation. Croatia initiated the forming of the Vienna- Ljubljana-Zagreb bilateral group after it was concluded that it is unnecessary to expand the already active Hungary-Slovenia-Italy trilateral group. The Croatia-Austria-Slovenia group will be formally established in Dubrovnik. The Slovene Foreign Minister on January 13 told reporters the imminent cooperation between Vienna, Ljubljana and Zagreb would probably focus on transport, defence, interior affairs and the issue of minorities. Further meetings of the new trilateral group will be held when necessary. The first opportunity for another meeting will be at the CEI ministerial conference on the Brijuni Isles, northern Adriatic, on June 5 and 6. (hina) ha jn /mb 241720 MET mar 98