CRO VICE PREMIER DISCUSSES TWO-WAY RETURN WITH OSCE OFFICIAL

ZAGREB, Sept 16 (Hina) - Croatian Vice Premier Ljerka Mintas- Hodak on Tuesday held talks with the high commissioner for national minorities of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Max van der Stoel, which focused on the two-way return of displaced persons and refugees and an act on the temporary takeover of specific property. Mintas-Hodak told van der Stoel about the efforts the Croatian government was making in the implementation of the two- way return programme, she told reporters in Zagreb afterwards. The talks also touched on issues which arise due to illegal moving in into houses and flats in liberated areas. "We informed Mr van der Stoel there is in each such case a court decision, if people who occupy the flat are forced to move out because they have no legal basis to occupy the flat," she said. The OSCE high commissioner for national minorities said he arrived in Croatia for talks on the two-way return. He discussed the return of Croats to the Croatian Danube region and Serbs to liberated areas today with Croatian Reconstruction and Development Minister Jure Radic and Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granic, while yesterday he visited Knin. Van der Stoel thought the Act on the Temporary Takeover and Administration of Specific Property should be improved. Croatia passed this Act, referring to property of people from liberated areas who are not using the property, in September 1995. Reporters asked Vice Premier Mintas-Hodak to comment remarks U.S. Ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith made in Vukovar on Sunday concerning the slowness of the peaceful reintegration of the Croatian Danube region. Speaking on behalf of Commission Article 11, an international commission for the implementation of an agreement on peaceful reintegration, Galbraith said the two-way return was progressing too slowly, that the Croatian government was not complying with financial obligations towards some municipalities in the region to be reintegrated and that it had still not worked out a programme on the reconciliation of Croats and Serbs. The U.S. Ambassador also advocated that the act on the temporary takeover of property be rescinded. According to Mintas-Hodak, the "Croatian government has done a lot in implementing peaceful reintegration, concerning the return of everyone to their homes, and in creating conditions for normal co-existence." She singled out "huge means" for the reintegration, the reconstruction and the functioning of local authority. The government would fulfil all of its obligations, the vice premier added. Local bodies of authority in the Croatian Danube region had problems in gathering their own income due to the situation in the region, Mintas-Hodak said, but, she added, the government "will intervene and assist." (hina) ha jn 161712 MET sep 97