OSCE REPS TOLD MINES ARE BIGGEST OBSTACLE TO RETURN IN KARLOVAC

( Editorial: --> 9285 ) KARLOVAC, July 22 (Hina) - A leading local Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) official held talks on Wednesday with Karlovac County Prefect Vlado Jelkovac on the return of refugees and displaced people and reconstruction in the Karlovac area. The basis for cooperation between the OSCE and the Croatian Government and local authorities in the forthcoming period will be the government's return programme which is positive, said the head of the OSCE co-ordination centre for central Croatia and western Slavonia, Carlo Ungaro. Jelkovac informed Ungaro of the consequences of Serbian aggression on the Karlovac area, where more than 14,000 homes and commercial buildings had been destroyed, and on efforts in reconstruction and the return of displaced people and refugees. They also discussed the difficult position of about 5,000 Bosnian Croat displaced people who had found refuge in the area. The Karlovac Prefect told OSCE representatives that 5,400 Serbs had returned to the county up to now. Return is burdened especially in areas where Bosnian Croats have emerged, but the biggest obstacle is mines, from which about 30 or so Croat returnees have been killed or injured since the area was liberated in the summer of 1995, Jelkovac said. Both sides agreed that vital for the return process was the economic revival of the town of Karlovac and Karlovac County, because the pace of return would depend on this. (Hina) mbr jn /is 221910 MET jul 98