BH COUNCIL OF MINISTERS AGAIN FAILS TO ADJUST CITIZENSHIP LAW

LAW $ SARAJEVO, Aug 4 (Hina) - Members of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia- Herzegovina at a Monday session in Sarajevo again failed to adjust laws on citizenship and passports, even though they were bound to do so by a deadline set by Carlos Westendorp, the international high representative for the implementation of the Dayton Accord. A new session has been called for tomorrow. Today's five-hour session was attended by all Council members, who again discussed the controversial provisions of the bill on citizenship. BH Foreign Minister Jadranko Prlic said 39 out of the bill's 50 articles were elaborated. Still in dispute was the concept of the citizenship of the entities, i.e. Bosnia-Herzegovina, he said. This issue made discussions difficult last week, when the Serb side demanded that the entities be enabled to join the citizenship, and that persons who acquire this right automatically become citizens of BH as well . Haris Silajdzic, the co-president of the Council of Ministers, assessed this demand as unacceptable, and warned that authorities in Pale insisted on this issue because they wanted to give citizenship's to Serbs from Croatia who came to BH after the Croatian Operation Storm military action. In spite of difficulties, BH Foreign Trade Minister Hasan Muratovic today assessed the discussion was making good progress. We recommended to the Administration Committee for the Implementation of the Peace Accord what steps should be taken in case we were dissatisfied with what had been achieved by the end of the day, Westendorp's spokesman Simon Haselock said today, but refused to say what steps were being discussed in the capitals of western Europe. (hina) ha jn 042255 MET aug 97