COUNCIL OF EUROPE REPS HOLD TALKS WITH CRO PARLIAMENTARY PARTIES

ZAGREB, 10 Oct (Hina) - A delegation of the Monitoring Committee of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly met with representatives of Croatian parliamentary parties in Zagreb on Friday. The Council of Europe delegation is paying a four-day visit to Croatia, during which it is to check how Croatia is fulfilling the obligations it had taken over at the time of its admission to the Council of Europe on 6 November 1996. #L# The Monitoring Committee delegation includes the Committee's President Guido de Marco and rapporteurs Hanna Suchocka and Gunner Janson. 'The meeting stressed a high level of agreement between the authorities and opposition when it comes to Croatian state interests, which means that they agreed on the completion of the UNTAES mandate on 15 January as well as on the issue of Croatia's cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague,' Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) representative Bosiljko Misetic told reporters after the meeting, which was held behind closed doors. The meeting was also attended by a Social Democratic Party (SDP) representative, Zdravko Tomac, a Croatian Social-Liberal Party (HSLS) representative, Bozo Kovacevic, and a Croatian Peasants' Party (HSS) representative, Stjepan Radic. Misetic and Tomac agreed that Croatia had been one of the initiators in the establishment of The Hague Tribunal and that it had always supported its work. It is not good, for the sake of justice, to forget that the war in this region started as a war for greater Serbia and that trials are held only in connection with the consequences of the Croat-Bosniak war, Tomac said. The Council of Europe delegation and their hosts also discussed how the Croatian Parliament is fulfilling the obligations from a 21-item list Croatia signed at the time of its admission to the Council of Europe. It was concluded that Parliament had ratified most of the conventions and protocols and that two more documents would be ratified by 6 November, Misetic said. Until that date, Parliament should ratify the European Convention on Human Rights and the Charter on Regional and Minority Languages. The representatives of the leading and opposition parties presented different views during a discussion on freedom of the media and election law. HDZ's Misetic said that the opposition representatives claimed that there was no freedom of the media, while the leading party claimed that there was freedom of the media. The HDZ representative said that the election law would be changed by the next elections. (hina) rm 101426 MET oct 97