CROATIA & US DISAGREE OVER BOSNIAN CROATS & CROATIAN DEMOCRACY

( Editorial: --> 6911 ) ZAGREB, Aug 30 (Hina) - Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on Sunday said Croatia and the US disagreed over Croatia's policy towards Croats in Bosnia and the condition of democracy in Croatia. The US wants Bosnian Croats to be independent of Zagreb, while Croatia insists on supporting them, referring in this respect to resolutions in the Washington and Dayton peace agreements warranting the connection, the two officials told reporters in Zagreb after a one-hour talk. I believe we disagree as regards Croatia's policy towards Bosnian Croats, Albright said. The US believes it is very important for Bosnian Croats to be able to function independently and be part of their country in order to contribute to its development, she said. President Tudjman said the chief problem in Croatian-American cooperation was Bosnia. He warned about "silent revisions of the Dayton agreement", emphasising this was unacceptable both for Croats in Bosnia and for Croatia. The only solution to the Bosnian crisis is a consistent implementation of the Washington and Dayton agreements, he said. "That is why Croatia is vitally interested in resolving the Bosnian crisis in the spirit of (these) agreements", said Tudjman. Speaking about Croatia's prominent interest for Bosnian Croats, Tudjman said it was Croatia's constitutional duty to care for Croats outside the mother-country. He added Croatia also had strategic interests in Bosnia for the protection of its own southern territory. The Croatian President recalled that the peace agreements, as the key documents for the resolution of the Bosnian crisis, guarantee the legitimacy of special relations between Croatia and Bosnian Croats and Croatia and the Croat-Muslim Federation of Bosnia- Herzegovina. "Whereas the Washington agreements spoke about direct confederal relations between the Federation of BH and Croatia, the Dayton agreements speak about special relations", Tudjman said. He called for US cooperation in a "consistent application of the Dayton agreement" to resolve the Bosnian crisis. Tudjman warned that Croats in Bosnia were the least numerous people. Their number was systematically falling, from 23.9 per cent after World War I, to 22 per cent after World War II, to 17 per cent before the last war, to the current 12 per cent of the whole Bosnian population. Tudjman said that Croathood in Bosnia was also endangered by denied national rights even in cantons guaranteed by the Dayton agreement. He emphasised he was glad the US and the high international representative for Bosnia thought there was no Bosnia without Croats. It is however necessary, for Bosnian Croats to feel safe, to resolve the problem of preventing them from stating their national identity and even their national characteristics, said the Croatian President. Stating US views on Bosnia and the role Croats have in it, the US Secretary of State said she saw Bosnia as a multiethnic society and that it was important for Croats in Bosnia to be part of Bosnia's system. We expect that by working with Croatia we shall strengthen the development of a strong and uniform Bosnia, said Albright. Speaking about Croatian-American relations, Albright gave positive assessments to a Croatian plan on the return of refugees, the beginning of a Croatian Serb return to Croatia, Croatia's cooperation with the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague, and to the successful reintegration of the Danube river region in eastern Croatia. Albright however said the US was still considerably concerned about some issues, such as the condition of democracy in Croatia, despite the existence of a pluralist political system and an active opposition. What we recommend is a political reform and the acknowledgement of media freedom to ensure equal possibilities for all, she said. Albright added the US also believed that ethnicity could not determine a country and that contemporary Croatia should welcome the return home of all who lived in it before the war. President Tudjman said Croatia was consistent in the development of democratic principles and order in all fields, and that the Croatian system and government could not be called authoritarian. "We must start from the situation in which Croatia was born and in which Croatia is (now), and we expect that the US government will listen more closely to all arguments and all sides", said Tudjman. "In the end, democracy has general rules, but in all countries democracy is also implemented depending on concrete historical and actual circumstances", he added. Asked if he expected Croatia to access NATO's Partnership for Peace by year's end, for which the US recently promised support, President Tudjman declined to comment. He recalled however that Croatia had already been promised support for accessing Partnership for Peace after the singing of the Dayton agreement by then current US Secretary of State Warren Christopher. Croatia is further resolute to join Euro-Atlantic security and economic systems, Tudjman said. With its constructive policy Croatia has demonstrated it is ready for this as the most stable country in this region, he concluded. (hina) ha 301610 MET aug 98