HDZ READY TO CONTINUE NEGOTIATIONS ON "ZAGREB POWER CRISIS"

ZAGREB, Sept 24 (Hina) - The Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) on Tuesday described a statement by six opposition parties on the power crisis in Zagreb as an ultimatum and an inconsistent and politically contradictory act. "Announcements of an extraparliamentary struggle and the attitude of opposition parties and their leaders towards HDZ can only be interpreted as an attempt to provoke internal political problems and evade an agreement among parties," the president of HDZ's Zagreb branch, Zlatko Canjuga, told a news conference. Canjuga said that HDZ deputies to the Zagreb City Council would put forward new proposals for resolving the power crisis in the capital. The six-party opposition alliance released a statement on Sunday demanding that the President of the Republic, the Government and Parliament intervene in line with their powers to resolve the crisis. "Of HDZ as the ruling party, we demand that it corrects its behaviour, which makes the denouement of the crisis impossible, or that it accepts the holding of new elections in a short time", the statement said. If within ten days they did not receive a satisfactory answer, councilors of the Zagreb City Assembly and the Zagreb County Assembly would freeze their activities, thus refusing to take part in the further prolongation of the crisis. Party representatives who signed the statement would propose to the Parliament to issue a document which would terminate the political crisis in Zagreb, the statement said, adding that if HDZ made that impossible, the opposition alliance "will know how to answer that in the right way". The HDZ would have nothing against discussing the Zagreb city crisis in the Croatian Parliament if it would contribute to a more responsible behaviour of parties, were such a thing impossible at the city level, and would try to open a new, more tolerant round of negotiations, Canjuga said. Canjuga estimated that a solution could easier be found in separate talks with parties. The opposition parties, which hold the majority of seats at the Zagreb City Council and present themselves as a six-party opposition alliance in negotiations about the Zagreb crisis, have so far refused HDZ's suggestions about separate negotiations with the HDZ. (hina) vm lm jn 241638 MET sep 96