PORGES: CONCESSIONS ON PLOCE DO NOT VIOLATE CROATIAN SOVEREIGNTY

( Editorial: --> 0675 ) ZAGREB, Sept 15 (Hina) - Croatia has made certain concessions to Bosnia-Herzegovina regarding control in the future free trade zone in the Croatian port of Ploce and free passage to the southern Adriatic town, but by that it did not jeopardise its sovereignty, Economy Minister Nenad Porges said on Tuesday in Zagreb. Last week Croatia and BH initialled an agreement that would give BH free and unrestricted movements of people and goods to the Ploce port and the use of a free trade zone in the port. Croatia, on its part, would gain free passage through Bosnia's Adriatic resort town of Neum, which separates the Dubrovnik area from the rest of Croatia. The agreement was forged under intensive mediation by the United States. According to the initialled agreement, which has been interpreted in different ways even before its publication, Croatia agrees to accept a final ruling by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in case of disputes. Croatia also accepts the participation of BH representatives in the port authorities that will manage the free trade zone and the mediation of the European Commission's Customs and Fiscal Assistance Office (CAFAO) in case of suspicious shipments. Speaking about the agreement, which needs to be approved by Croatian and BH parliaments, Bosnia's main negotiator Foreign Trade Minister Mirsad Kurtovic said BH would be able to import goods through Ploce free of any control and that the cargoes would not be subject to control by Croatian customs authorities. Porges, however, said that although they would not impose tariffs on BH-bound cargoes, Croatian customs officers would monitor the shipment of goods to Ploce and in the local free trade zone and would not renounce any of its sovereignty regarding supervision. The agreement envisages that the Croatian authorities can stop suspicious shipments and then wait until they are checked by a CAFAO representative. If found to be illegal a shipment would then be processed by the Croatian authorities in Ploce and the BH in Neum respectively. Porges stressed that Croatia wanted a minimum of supervision and tensions in the use of the free trade zone and the flow of goods, because the agreement was in the interest of the economic progress of both Croatia and BH, whose economies are complementary. The Croatian Economy Minister repeated that Croatia's final signing of the agreement on the use of the Ploce port and access through Neum was conditional on a final signing of the agreement on special relations between Croatia and the Federation of BH, Bosnia's Muslim-Croat entity. Croatia insists on special relations, recalling that the Washington and Dayton agreements were motivated in protecting the interests of Croats in BH as well as the strategic interest of protecting its southern territories. In the meantime the European Union has explicitly stated that special relations between Croatia and the Federation of BH are not in accordance with the Dayton accords, while the United States has also unwillingly looked at this possibility as harming Bosnia's sovereignty. Currently access to Ploce and through Neum is regulated by an interim agreement from 1996, which would be replaced by the new agreement. (Hina) mro jn /mbr 152333 MET sep 98