CRO INTERIOR MINISTER VISITS DANUBE RIVER REGION

( Editorial: --> 6212 ) ERDUT/VUKOVAR, 5 Dec (Hina) - The Croatian Interior Minister Ivan Penic on Friday spoke to participants of a police course in Erdut. Police officers have to treat all people in the same way, regardless of their nationality, Penic told the police officers. "You will be transitional police officers for only a couple more days, and then you will become Croatian police officers," Penic said. He informed the participants of the course that Croatia and Yugoslavia were preparing the signing of an agreement on cooperation in preventing crime. Under that agreement, Croatia would hand over criminals who are Yugoslav citizens to Yugoslavia, and Yugoslavia would hand over Croatian criminals to Croatia. The police force in the Danube river region had to increase the number of identified perpetrators of criminal acts from the existing 40% to the Croatian average of 70% of all criminal acts, he said. Speaking about the control of state border in the Danube river region, which is crossed by 30,000 persons per day, Penic said Croatia and Yugoslavia had signed an agreement on local border traffic, which was very liberal, so that crossings of the state border at places where there were no border crossings would not be tolerated. On Friday, Penic visited the border crossing Erdut-Bogojevo. Milomir Petkovic, head of the Erdutje border police station, said that there were no problems at the border crossing. He added that by 12 o'clock today 183 vehicles entered Croatia and 155 vehicles entered Serbia from Croatia. I have discussed the situation in the Danube river region together with police officers in Beli Manastir and Erdut, Penic said, adding he was dissatisfied with the fact that 45 persons were killed in car accidents in the area, while the death toll in car accidents in the whole of Croatia was 650. That is why I have ordered that traffic control be intensified quickly, Penic said. He also expressed dissatisfaction with the number of identified perpetrators of criminal acts in the Danube river region. Penic also met with Deputy Transitional Administrator in eastern Slavonia, Souren Seraydarian, and discussed with him the completion of tasks of the Transitional Police Force in the Danube river region. Expressing satisfaction with the current ethnic composition of the police force in the area, which is similar to the ethnic composition of residents in 1991, Penic said that he and Seraydarian also discussed the future of 5,000 to 6,000 citizens in the area who do not have Croatian citizenship. The people in question are mainly Bosnian citizens and they all have to solve their status, whether it be by acquiring refugee status or by acquiring temporary or permanent residence permits in the area, Penic said. (hina) mm rm 051837 MET dec 97