BOSNIAN SERBS REFUSE TO SIGN MEMORANDUM ON OPENING OF AIRPORTS

SARAJEVO, June 23 (Hina) - During his Monday talks with officers of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia-Herzegovina in Sarajevo, NATO Secretary General Javier Solana failed to reach agreement on the signing of a memorandum on the opening of airports in Banja Luka, Tuzla and Mostar for civil air transport. The memorandum was not signed due to obstructions on the Bosnian Serb side, Haris Silajdzic, a co-chairman of the BH Council of Ministers told reporters after the talks with Solana. Boro Bosic, another chairman, refused to sign the proposed memorandum demanding that the Banja Luka airport be exclusively under the town's local authority, and not the BH joint civil aviation administration. Bosic told reporters that the Banja Luka airport was the exclusive property of the town, and that Bosnian Serbs demanded of the Stabilization Force that the airport's administration be taken over by authorized bodies in Banja Luka. He had nothing against the opening of airports in Mostar and Tuzla, Bosic said, put pointed out the Bosnian Serbs' standpoint that, as the property of the former Yugoslav People's Army, those airports were a matter to be debated within discussions on the succession to the former Yugoslavia's property. After today's meeting with representatives of the BH Council of Ministers, Solana did not want to comment on the absence of signatures on the proposed memorandum, but pointed out that civil aviation was primarily an issue of the BH authorities on which they must cooperate and settle. (hina) ha 231444 MET jun 97