CROATIA, YUGOSLAVIA MAKE A STEP FORWARD IN NORMALIZING RELATIONS

BELGRADE, Jan 10 (Hina) - The foreign ministers of Croatia and Yugoslavia, Mate Granic and Milan Milutinovic, described their talks in Belgrade on Wednesday as a step forward in the normalization of overall relations between their two countries. "We have reached a high degree of accord in a number of issues," Milutinovic told reporters after the meeting. "We are on a good road to start solving the most important bilateral issues, including economic, traffic and others, in a satisfactory way," he added. Granic said that "we have made a step forward in the normalization of our relations," adding that "We believe that this is an important step forward in the overall normalization of relations between the two countries and Croatian-Serbian relations as a whole." "We believe that in a relatively short period of time concrete results will be achieved and certain bilateral agreements will be signed," Granic said. The talks with Milutinovic focused on the restoration of road, rail, postal and air links between Croatia and Yugoslavia, Granic said, adding that the issues would be further discussed by ministry departments of the two governments. Granic said that Milutinovic was expected to visit Croatia in the first half of February. (hina) vm mm 101832 MET jan 96