INTERNATIONAL REPS. HAIL AGREEMENT ON JOINT POLICE IN MOSTAR

MOSTAR, July 15 (Hina) - International organisations' officials working in the Mostar area, have unanimously hailed (Tuesday) the agreement on establishment of the joint police in Herzegovina-Neretva Canton, signed last week by local Croat and Moslem (Bosniak) officials and witnessed by the international police commissioner for Bosnia-Herzegovina, Manfred Steiner, and the US Embassy charge d'affaires in Bosnia, Robert Beecroft. On Tuesday's news conference, the head of the OSCE office in Mostar, Edward Joseph, described the deal as a key step for respect for human rights and the Dayton accords. Supporting the agreement, a UNHCR spokeswoman, Ariane Quentier portrayed it as a big step forward in providing security for returnees. Dragan Gasic, a spokesman for Mostar's office of the High Representative, said the office commended the agreement and hoped that it would be consistently implemented. The international police spokeswoman in Mostar, Kelly Moore, said that there was no problems with any party after the agreement had been signed. Gasic said that the office's lawyers ended a legal analysis of the establishment of a community of Croat-controlled municipalities in Mostar. According to Gasic, a deputy to the international community's High Representative, Gerd Wagner, sent a letter on July 12 to President and Vice President of the Croat-Moslem Federation, Vladimir Soljic and Ejup Ganic respectively, in which he expressed grave concern over a decision on the set-up of the community of the Croat-controlled municipalities in Mostar. At the Mostar conference, Gasic read parts of Wagner's letter which say that the transitional statute does not allow establishment of a community of town's municipalities of Mostar with the joint administration. Any decision in this stage on uniting three municipalities into one on any bank of the Neretva river would represent a serious violation not only of the letter but also of the spirit of the Dayton agreement, according to Wagner's letter. Gasic added that Wagner also criticised how the decision was made on the Croat-controlled municipalities' community, as most of councillors, Gasic said, who were not members of the Croatian Democratic Union of BH (HDZ BiH), had not been called. The stand of the international community was absolutely clear that a decision on the establishment of the community of town's municipalities was illegal, Gasic said. According to him, Wagner called on Soljic and Ganic to intervene with responsible bodies in western Mostar and warn them about their legal obligations. Asked to comment on international factors' latest accusations that Mostar was the centre of drug smugglers, and asked who was trafficking drugs in Mostar, Kelly Moore responded that international police did not have a mandate to conduct an independent probe into the drug trafficking in the Mostar area. She explained that international police forces could conduct an independent investigation only in case of human rights' abuse by local policemen. (hina) mm mš 151416 MET jul 97