TALKS BETWEEN CROATIAN ARMY AND SERB REBELS IN VOJNOVAC

KARLOVAC, Feb 17 (Hina) - Representatives of the Croatian Army and of the Serb military formations from Plasko held negotiations today at the location of Vojnovac near Plasko (UNPA North, the Karlovac area, some 50 kilometres south of Zagreb). Representatives of the civil authorities of Plasko attended for the first time such negotiations. They negotiated on the issue of the establishment of the check-points on Kapela, where the Serb rebels were often carrying out armed provocations recently, as it was said at today's press conference of the Karlovac headquarters of the Croatian Army. The Serb negotiators proposed that the check-points should be installed behind the Croatian units, what was rejected by the delegation of the Croatian Army. The Croatian suggestion, which was the same as the proposal made by UNPROFOR, was accepted. The proposal says that representatives of the blue berets should first visit the units on Kapela and then make their suggestions on the places where to install the monitor-points. The two warring sides would eventually give their consent to the final proposal, according to the press-briefing in Karlovac. The crossing-point at Vojnovac should have been established these days, but the Serb side required that the Croatian Army retrieve from the locations of Radosici and Poljaci. The Croatian side found that unacceptable, and the UNPROFOR Commander in the Sector North, General Hesselberg, asserted that the Croatian forces had been deployed in these locations for a longer time so that there was no need to remove them, since those units of the Croatian Army did not disturb the installment of that crossing-point at Vojnovac. The crossing-point would be opened after de-activation of mines there, and then only the UNPROFOR staff would use the crossing-point, the journalists were told that at today's conference. Milan Radanovic, the head of Plasko, proposed that the exchange of letters and meetings of the war-separated families should be organized, and the Croatian side accepted it. There are still 67 Croats in Plasko, and meetings will enable better contacts with them. Another round of negotiations between the two sides is to be held in the location of Turanj on the 3rd of March, according to today's press conference's announcement. 172100 MET feb 94