MANDATE OF UNTAES TO END FOR SIX MONTHS - CROATIA'S GRANIC

STRASBOURG, Nov 6 (Hina) - Croatia's admission to the Council of Europe is the first step toward the European integration, Croatia's Foreign Minister Mate Granic, said in Strasbourg on Wednesday. Granic told a news conference that his country had solved a major number of requests the Council of Europe had made before letting Croatia enter the Council. Mandate of the UNTAES (U.N. Transitional Administration in eastern Slavonia) would end within six months under the formula early spring - early summer, and then the UNTAES would hand over authority to Croatia, the Croatian Foreign Minister said. Speaking about the cooperation between The Hague war criminal tribunal and Croatia he said his country had adopted a law on the cooperation, General Tihomir Blaskic had gone to the tribunal of his own free will, and 1,900 persons in Croatia were being under investigation for different kinds of crimes in the wake of the liberating operation "Storm" (summer 1995). He added that Croatia was ready to cooperate completely with The Hague Tribunal, so that the accused would be extradited to The Hague. Asked about the affairs of Dario Kordic and Ivica Rajic, (Bosnian Croats) accused by the International Tribunal of war crimes, and who were allegedly in Croatia according to some magazines, Granic said it was proved that the two were still in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Commenting on this morning's protest rally of 'Reporters Without Frontiers' whose members had thrown, from the gallery, leaflets with front pages of the Split-based weekly Feral Tribune during the ceremony of Croatia's signing the European Convention on human rights, Granic said "it is also a part of democracy." (hina) mm mš 061901 MET nov 96