POLITICAL WILL CONDITION FOR SOLVING FATE OF THE MISSING - DOLE

( Editorial: --> 9595 ) SARAJEVO, Apr 26 (Hina) - Good but insufficient progress has been made over recent months in resolving the issue of persons gone missing during the war in Bosnia, the president of the International Commission for Missing Persons, U.S. senator Robert Dole, said in Sarajevo Sunday. Dole spoke at a press conference held after a meeting with Bosnian Presidency deputy chairman Haris Silajdzic, Bosnian Foreign Minister Jadranko Prlic, and the president of the Bosnian Serb entity's parliament, Dragan Kalinic. I am satisfied with the willingness to cooperate the three sides have clearly shown in order to accelerate the resolving of the missing persons issue, Dole said. We agreed that the bodies of authority and the International Commission have to ensure further means to accelerate the exhumation process, Dole said. But what we need is information the authorities possess about possible mass graves, as well as political will that the forthcoming summer be successful. The U.S. senator announced a more consistent financial assistance to associations of families of persons gone missing during the Bosnian war, so that they too might submit their requests for resolving the issue of the missing to the authorities. Dole and Bosnian Foreign Minister Prlic today signed a special agreement on the status of the International Commission for Missing Persons. The agreement regulates the diplomatic status of its staff employed in Bosnia. The U.S. senator and deputy international High Representative for Bosnia Jacques Klein yesterday visited Bradina, Bugojno and Capljina, where preliminary work began to commence exhumation of graves containing Bosniaks (Muslims), Croats and Serbs. The beginning of exhumation works is a concrete indicator of the growing willingness to cooperate with the aim to shed light on the fate of persons filed as missing, Klein said today. These exhumations are a result of direct agreements among interested parties which determined the locations where exhumations should be carried out, he said. Klein also announced that exhumations would be carried out on 12 further locations by November. The families of the missing no longer want to hear excuses but get explanations and answers, the deputy High Representative pointed out. He called on all who know something about possible mass graves or missing persons who may be alive to submit their data to international organisations in Bosnia. (hina) ha 261603 MET apr 98