AUTHORITY IN MOSTAR SHOULD BE ESTABLISHED ACCORDING TO ELECTION RE

RE $ SULTS - STEINER SARAJEVO, July 28 (Hina) - Deputy High Representative for the Implementation of the Peace Agreement in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Michael Steiner, on Sunday said that the international community insisted that authority in Mostar should be established according to the results of the elections, and also accused "a group of gangsters" from the western part of the city for the current crisis. Steiner told reporters in Sarajevo that the Croatian side had been offered a compromising proposal which consisted in summoning the city council in order to elect a mayor and his deputy until the Bosnian Federation's Supreme Court reached a verdict on the legality of the Mostar June elections. Steiner said that the mayor would be Croat regardless of election results, that the city council would not be summoned again until the Supreme Court's verdict and that decisions would be made exclusively on the basis of a consensus, in order to avoid outvoting. "If this proposal isn't accepted by the deadline set by the European Union, the mayor could even be elected by the city council, without Croat representatives, while the international police forces, with IFOR's support, would provide the functioning of such civil authority in Mostar, which would represent the only legal partner to the international community", Steiner said. He warned that the main responsibility for the establishment of legal authority in Mostar "is on President Tudjman as one of the guarantors of the Dayton agreement", and pointed out that the relations of the international community towards Croatia would depend on Zagreb's stance as regards the Mostar crisis. (Hina) ha mm 281352 MET jul 96