SECURITY COUNCIL PRESIDENTIAL STATEMENT IS TOO HARSH - SKARE- OZBOLT

OZBOLT $ ILOK, Sept 20 (Hina) - The Croatian government has complied with most of its committments in the process of peaceful reintegration of the Danube region of eastern Croatia, the Croatian President's deputy chief of staff, Vesna Skare-Ozbolt, told reporters in Ilok, eastern Croatia, on Saturday. "We shall fulfill the rest of our obligations in the upcoming period and UNTAES' mandate shall terminate on 15 January next year", she said. Skare-Ozbolt assessed a recent presidential statement of the UN Security Council as "too strong considering all that the Croatian policy has done for a successful termination of the peaceful reintegration." "The success of that process is the goal of Croatian policy", she said. Speaking about a report on the situation in eastern Croatia the UN transitional administrator for that area is to submit to the UN secretary general in the near future, Skare-Ozbolt said that "Croatia expects a correct and fair report, which will value all the results the Croatian side has achieved together with UNTAES in the last two years." President Tudjman's deputy chief of staff announced 5,000 displaced persons would return to the Croatian Danube region this month. She recalled this was a two-way return process, made possible to include so many returnees by the fact that some 5,000 Serbs from the Danube region had already returned to their homes in other parts in Croatia. Asked to comment on an appeal U.S. ambassador for war crimes issues David Scheffer recently made to the Croatian government to draw a final list of persons to whom the Amnesty Law does not apply, Skare-Ozbolt said there were no lists of those to whom the said law did or did not apply. "There are 25 persons who have been sentenced for war crimes", she said, adding that "international institutions know about it". (hina) ha 201757 MET sep 97