GOVT REPS OF BH, BH FEDERATION, REPUBLIKA SRPSKA AGREE TO CONTINUE

CONTINUE $ EXHUMATIONS SARAJEVO, Sept 4 (Hina) - Government representatives of Bosnia- Herzegovina (BH), the Federation of BH and Republika Srpska on Wednesday agreed to allow the exhumation of mass graves to continue in areas they control. Today's meeting at the Sarajevo airport was presided by Deputy High Representative for the Implementation of the Peace Agreement on BH Michael Steiner and was attended by Hasan Muratovic, Kresimir Zubak and Momcilo Krajisnik. The agreement put an end to a six-week stop in the inspection of mass graves, Steiner told reporters, adding that the parties had agreed to determine priorities and undertook to guarantee full security to exhumation teams. Steiner reiterated that the whole proceeding met with difficulties when exhumations had to be performed near Glamoc, Ozren and the village of Kravice near Srebrenica. The three parties will meet on 6 September to discuss concrete exhumation plans. Exhumation teams will include four pathologists with assistants and ten members of the state commission for the missing. The media will have free access to the sites. A document signed today called "Operation Agreement on Exhumations and Clearing of Unburied Remains" states that the whole process must begin by the end of the week and that all parties understand that they must answer requests of the families of missing persons. The Agreement follows a previous one reached in Banja Luka on 25 June, when, with Steiner's mediation, representatives of associations of the missing from the Banja Luka area met with women from Srebrenica and agreed to speed up the process of finding out about all those who were on the lists of missing persons and to speed up the release of remaining war prisoners. The latter were not discussed at today's meeting, Steiner said, but confirmed that all three sides still detained some prisoners of war. (hina) ha 042013 MET sep 96