RENAMING MILE BUDAK STREET TO BE DISCUSSED IN AUTUMN - SPLIT MAYOR

( Editorial: --> 8351 ) SPLIT, July 17 (Hina) - Split Mayor Ivan Skaric on Friday said he believed that the request of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre to the leaders of the Israeli town of Beith Shemesh to cancel its partnership agreement with Split was not Israel's official stand or that of Beith Shemesh. Sakic said he believed that the request was rather the stand of a certain lobby at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre. He said that in the past three days he tried to establish contact with the mayor of Beith Shemesh, but without success. Skaric said he believed that the mayor of Beith Shemesh would confirm his opinion. The friendship between Split and Beith Shemesh dates back to the end of 1994, and Mile Budak Street already existed in Split at that time, Skaric said. Representatives of Beith Shemesh knew that, but did not object because they accepted it as a street of one of Croatian writers. According to Skaric, the request of the Centre Simon Wiesenthal encroaches upon the sovereignty of a state, its bodies and institutions and the pressures will be part of the regular procedure. The town leadership had considered the change of the name of Mile Budak Street before the initiatives from Israel but that is the job of the town commission for naming streets and squares, Split Mayor said. The town council will most probably discuss this problem in autumn when the authorised commission presents its stand on the matter, he added. The insisting of Simon Wiesenthal Centre Director Efraim Zuroff on the change of the name of Mile Budak Street, which Zuroff mentioned at a press conference in Split during his recent visit to Croatia, culminated on Wednesday, when the Centre suggested to the mayor of Beith Shemesh, which is Split's partner city, to reconsider its partnership agreement if Split fails to change the name of the said street. In a letter forwarded to Beith Shemesh Mayor Danni Vaknin, Zuroff said it was inconceivable for any Israeli city to be twinned with a city which had decided to preserve the memory of the Jews' worst enemies. The Centre Simon Wiesenthal in Jerusalem believes that Budak's literary achievements have become irrelevant given that he was a minister during the Ustasha regime, which was responsible for mass murder. The seaport Split, which is twinned with 14 cities around the world, twinned with Beith Shemesh in November 1994. (hina) jn rml/ha 172036 MET jul 98