CROATIA AND SLOVENIA TO TRY AND REACH AGREEMENT OR GO FOR ARBITRATION

ARBITRATION ( Editorial: --> 5933 ) MOKRICE, Aug 25 (Hina) - Croatia and Slovenia have agreed to try and reach agreement on open property and legal questions in the next three months and in case no agreement is reached, they will resort to international arbitration, Croatian and Slovene state officials said Tuesday. The Croatian and Slovene Foreign Ministers Mate Granic and Boris Frlec and Economy Ministers Nenad Porges and Metod Dragonja met today at Mokrice Castle near the Slovene-Croatian border to discuss all open questions, especially those concerning Krsko nuclear power plant and borders. The meeting was initiated by Croatia, following deterioration of relations caused by unilateral decisions made by Slovenia concerning the border on the River Dragonja and a regulation on the work of Krsko nuclear power plant, which practically has left Croatia out of the plant's management. Krsko nuclear power plant was built on the Slovene territory but is jointly owned by the two countries. The two sides have agreed for Slovenia to organise a meeting of Croatian and Slovene finance ministers within a 20 day deadline. The ministers are to resolve the problem of debt of the Zagreb branch of Ljubljanska Banka to Croatian depositors, said a joint statement issued after the talks. If no agreement on this problem is reached within a three month deadline, Croatia and Slovenia agree to leave the matter to be decided by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or World Bank. The two sides have also agreed to immediately start talks on an inter-state agreement on the status of Krsko nuclear power plant. Should there be no agreement on this issue within a deadline of three months, the two countries will request international arbitration. The readiness to accept international arbitration in solving open questions is new in the Croatian-Slovene relations and it should lead to the final solution of at least some of the open questions. Today's talks have also resulted in an agreement for the Croatian Justice Ministry to organise a meeting of experts from both countries within a 20 day deadline. These experts would be entrusted with preparing the final draft agreement on property and legal relations between the two countries within a three month deadline. The two sides have also agreed to speed up the work of a joint diplomatic commission for the establishment of sea and land borders. Proposals of both sides on resolving all open questions would then be presented at a meeting the commission should hold in Ljubljana in October. The Croatian and Slovene officials have also agreed to refrain from any unilateral measures concerning open questions and to solve them through talks and in the spirit of good neighbourly relations. Today's agreement was reached in the last 20 minutes of three-hour talks, a source close to the Croatian team said. "The agreement which also includes arbitration suits both sides because it would finally solve the disputes," a Croatian source said. Today's agreement is an important step forward in solving all open questions, Foreign Ministers Granic and Frlec told reporters after the talks. Croatia will not accept the unilateral Slovene regulation on Krsko nuclear power plant and Slovenia will continue to insist that the price of electricity produced in Krsko is currently not adequate and should include modernisation and investment costs, the Croatian Economy Minister Nenad Porges and his Slovene counterpart Metod Dragonja said. Until an inter-state agreement on Krsko is reached, the two sides will try and agree on the Slovene regulation and the price of electricity. It has been agreed for the plant's temporary management board to meet once all doubts have been cleared, Porges said. The two countries are approaching a solution to the problem of land border, Granic said adding he believed that this question can be resolved through negotiations. As regards the sea border, Croatia and Slovenia will for the first time present their proposals for solving this problem. Slovenia's Foreign Minister Frlec said he believed that the final agreement on borders should include solutions for both the land and sea borders. The two countries will deal with the problem of borders on their own first and they will consider international arbitration only if they fail to succeed, Granic said stressing that international arbitration in the border dispute was not considered at today's meeting. Slovenia is interested in Croatia's admission to all international organisations, including the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Slovenia's Frlec said adding his country would participate in the forthcoming meeting of a group in charge of Croatia's admission to the WTO. (hina) rml 252300 MET aug 98