MACEDONIAN PARLIAMENT REPRESENTATIVES VISIT CROATIA

( Editorial: --> 7034 ) ZAGREB, April 15 (Hina) - Croatia and Macedonia have almost identical attitudes about a number of issues discussed at Wednesday's meeting between the two countries' parliamentary delegations. The Macedonian delegation is headed by speaker Tito Petkovski. It is on a three-day visit to Croatia. "Both Macedonia and Croatia want to access the European union and NATO, and also to develop market economies" with an accented social aspect, Croatian Parliament Speaker Vlatko Pavletic said. Both countries have identical views about "possible south-European associations", Pavletic added. "Macedonian colleagues expressed the stance that they are for every multi-sided useful economic cooperation, but they are against any kind of political associations and confederations," he said. A confirmation of good relations between the two countries is the announced visit of President Franjo Tudjman to Macedonia this year, Petkovski said. Economic relations "are unjustifiably lagging behind political relations", he said, but conditions for significant improvement have been achieved on that plan with the signing of a number of agreements, Petkovski said. He thanked his hosts for fully understanding the situation in Macedonia since the eruption of the crisis in Kosovo and the danger of the conflict spreading into its territory. (hina) lm mm /mb 152036 MET apr 98