SKARE-OZBOLT DISSATISFIED WITH POSTPONEMENT OF CONFERENCE

( Editorial: --> 0654 ) HRVATSKA KOSTAJNICA, April 30 (Hina) - Croatian deputy presidential chief-of-staff and National Trust Establishment Committee president Vesna Skare-Ozbolt said Thursday she was dissatisfied with the international community's decision to postpone its participation at the donors' conference for the reconstruction and development of Croatia. Such decisions "extremely hamper" the work of the Committee and "does not create a good atmosphere in Croatia", Skare-Ozbolt said. The postponement of the donors' conference was harmful to those who had suffered the worst, people whose destroyed houses needed to be rebuilt, Skare-Ozbolt told reporters in Hrvatska Kostajnica (area liberated in 1995, 80km south-east of Zagreb). "This is where I separate politics from a humanitarian problem," she added. Skare-Ozbolt recalled that almost 40,000 Serbs had so far returned to their homes in the Croatian Danube River area from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which was more than neighbouring countries included in the process of return. The international community almost did not even mention the efforts Croatia had invested in the process of return of refugees and displaced persons, she said and accentuated that the Croatian leadership would continue to fulfil all obligations it had assumed. Asked whether the government would respond to the requests of the Article 11 Commission and make changes to the document on the return of persons who left Croatia, which was adopted on April 27 by the Croatian Government, Skare-Ozbolt said she "cannot comment on that". Asked whether the Croatian leadership would fulfil demands set by the international community at the recent regional conference on return which was held in Banja Luka, Skare-Ozbolt said "demands are one thing, and assumed obligations are another". "The commitments the Croatian state has assumed, it will fulfil," Skare-Ozbolt said. (hina) lm jn /mb 301543 MET apr 98