IRANIAN AMBASSADOR TO CROATIA HOLDS NEWS CONFERENCE

ZAGREB, Feb 24 (Hina) - Iran's ambassador to Croatia, Mohammad Javad Asayesh, and eight of the ten Iranians who had been held in prison in the central Bosnian town Jajce for six days last week, held a news conference in Zagreb to present their government's view of the event. Croatian mufti Omerbasic had invited Iranian Ku'ran singers to Bosnia-Herzegovina to celebrate the end of Ramadan, a Moslem month of fasting, Asayesh said. A group of singers had first performed in a mosque in Vinenna and then in Zagreb, after which they had toured several Bosnian towns for 15 days. On their way back from the central Bosnian town of Zenica to Zagreb, they were stopped by Croat Defence Council (HVO) troops in Jajce, taken off the bus and imprisoned, the ambassador said. We find such behaviour totally strange because the HVO knew very well that those were artists, he stressed. Besides the eight singers, two humanitarian aid workers had also been arrested after they had gone in an official vehicle bearing diplomatic licence plates to find the missing artists, Asayesh said. All the prisoners were released on Friday with the great assistance of former Croatian Prime Minister Nikica Valentic and Assistant Foreign Minister France Krnic, he said. "Iran protests against such behaviour of the HVO, but considering very friendly relations between the Islamic Republic and Croatia, we expect and believe that such things will not happen again," Asayesh said. (hina) vm jn 242156 MET feb 96