INTERVIEW BY CROATIAN AMBASSADOR TO THE UN

NEW YORK, May 5 (Hina) - Croatian Ambassador to the United Nations Mario Nobilo commented in an interview with Hina yesterday on a statement by president of the Serbian Democratic Forum Milorad Pupovac that the Forum would request that Security Council Resolution 820 or some of its provisions be abandoned or changed. Pupovac told a May 3 press conference that talks between the Croatian government and Serb rebel authorities could get out of the impasse by abolishing Article 12 of the said resolution. The article stipulates that companies in the UNPAs can export goods outside Croatia only with permission from the Croatian government. "The said resolution was passed more than a year ago as part of final tightening of sanctions against Yugoslavia," Nobilo said, stressing that the resolution clearly showed that the UNPAs in Croatia were not subject to sanctions. "The Security Council cannot impose sanctions against only one part of the territory of its member state. In this case, the UNPAs are part of Croatian territory. The Council only demands that local authorities obey their government, and from the point of international law this is and can be only the legitimate government in Zagreb," he emphasized. The Croatian government has issued a decree regulating the registration of exports, which encountered a positive response from the United Nations. Nobilo said that as far as he knew not a single company from the UN-protected areas had applied to the Croatian government for such a document. He noted that the resolution specified that the registration regime did not include humanitarian aid, food and medicine. Nobilo said that that refuted Pupovac's statement that his request was motivated by humanitarian reasons. The Croatian ambassador went on to say that "Article 12 is not aimed at punishing the Serb people in the UNPAs but strengthening Croatian sovereignty in those areas. Changing that part of the resolution would in fact lead to the negation of Croatian sovereignty over a part of Croatian territory. In addition, enabling the transit of cargo from the UNPAs outside the Republic of Croatia without Croatian authorities controlling it would be in direct violation of the overall regime of sanctions against so- called Yugoslavia as it would enable indirect communication between Serbia and Montenegro and the world through Croatia." Noting that such a request would encourage the integration of Serb-occupied territories in Croatia with the so-called Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), Nobilo concluded that "the resolution of the tragic economic situation in the UNPAs lies in their eventual reintegration into the Republic of Croatia." Borislav Mikelic, prime minister of the self-styled Serb government in the occupied territories, has recently presented an identical request in a Banja Luka television broadcast. The Serb-occupied areas in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina have recently introduced a monetary union with Yugoslavia. 051327 MET may 94