FIRST ROUND OF GENEVA TALKS FINISHES

GENEVA, June 2 (Hina) - The first round of day-long talks on the implementation of the Dayton peace agreement on Bosnia-Herzegovina and a working lunch hosted by US Secretary of State Warren Christopher finished in Geneva on Sunday. #L# All the participants moved to the U.S. diplomatic mission at the UN for bilateral meetings. After the talks, the Swiss Foreign Minister and president of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Flavio Cotti, held a brief press conference. Cotti said that talks with presidents Franjo Tudjman of Croatia, Alija Izetbegovic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kresimir Zubak of the Bosnian Federation and Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia and Bosnian Serb representative Aleksa Buha focused on the current situation and the process of the implementation of the Dayton agreement. It was unanimously concluded, with certain differences in approach, that progress in the peace process has been achieved, but that it is still necessary to make substantial steps forward in some areas, said Cotti. He stressed the need for removing obstacles to freedom of movement, enabling all political parties access to all media in Bosnia-Herzegovina and securing cooperation with the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague. He did not want to limit the issue of cooperation with the tribunal to the extradition of Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic and military commander Ratko Mladic. The status of indicted war criminals is still the main obstacle to the holding of general, free and fair elections in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Secretary of State Warren Christopher will put a particular emphasis on this in afternoon bilateral talks, Cotti said. He concluded by saying that he had personally appealed to the three presidents to make maximum efforts this month in creating conditions that would enable the holding of elections in Bosnia- Herzegovina as envisaged by the Dayton and Paris agreements. (hina) ha 021707 MET jun 96