GRANIC: UNILATERAL SLOVENE MOVES ONLY HURT SLOVENIA

( Editorial: --> 4194 ) ZAGREB, Aug 17 (Hina) - Recent unilateral Slovene moves at grabbing Croatian hamlets near the Dragonja river and organising operations at the Krsko nuclear power plant are only damaging Slovenia, Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granic said on Monday. "Unilateral moves during negotiations always harm those who undertake them," Granic told reporters in Zagreb. He added that such moves spoke more about Slovenia who had instigated them than about Croatia, who they were directed at. Slovenia recently sharpened its relations with Croatia, first in last month's delivery by the Slovene Government of a regulation on the interim work and reorganisation of Krsko without Croatian agreement. The nuclear power plant is located in Slovenia but is owned by both countries. And then the Slovene Geodetic Administration approached residents of four Croatian hamlets south of the Dragonja river and allocated them house numbers from the Slovene municipality of Secovje, thereby practically annexing the hamlets to Slovenia. Granic said these and other open issues in Croatian-Slovene relations would be discussed with his Slovene counterpart Boris Frlec on August 25 in Zagreb. The Croatian Foreign Minister said the Slovenes had not achieved anything with the moves because Croatia had and would continue to exercise real authority over the four hamlets. "Nothing is achieved actually but it creates a climate of negotiation," he said, pointing out what Slovenia wanted to achieve through its actions in spite of mutual agreement that one-sided moves would not prejudice a final resolution to resolving open issues. Croatia for its part did not react by heightening tension but tried to calm the situation. "Besides (showing) a resolute stance on both issues we did not want to add to the rise in the temperature," Granic said, showing he did not consider the Slovene actions as overly serious. "Croatia wants to discuss seriously the real and big issues." Croatia immediately proposed that talks on these issues be raised to the ministers level which the Slovenes accepted. Other open issues between Croatia and Slovenia to be discussed in the Granic-Frlec meeting include the arrangement of mutual boundaries especially in the Piran Bay and economic issues such as property and debts owed by Ljubljanska banka to Croatian depositors. Granic said that a joint land and maritime borders commission had resolved "98 per cent of problems" and the remainder were only points of expertise which would probably require the involvement of the foreign ministers. "From our side we are prepared to reach a final resolution through compromise," he said. (Hina) mbr 171915 MET aug 98