The workshop is being attended by about a hundred Croatian officials, representatives of civil society from Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia, police officials from Croatia and representatives of international organisations.
Addressing the gathering, a state secretary at the Ministry of the Interior, Ivica Buconjic, said he hoped that the workshop would contribute to the training of employees of the Ministry of the Interior who were expected to implement the Aliens Act and solve all the remaining cases of persons with undefined status by the end of the year.
The persons in question had residence in Croatia in October 1991 and later, for different reasons, such as occupation of one-third of Croatia's territory and population migrations caused by the war, did not obtain Croatian citizenship and identification papers for aliens, and now want to live permanently in Croatia. Most of those people are refugees from Croatia or people resettled in some other way.
Buconjic said that the ministry relied on UNHCR and OSCE data regarding the number of such persons, with estimates ranging from 900 to 1,000. Buconjic said the ministry believed that their number was even lower.
OSCE Mission head Jorge Fuentes called for the even implementation of the Aliens Act, saying that the normal application of the law would help define the status of former aliens with permanent residence.
This is in line with the priorities Croatia is expected to meet under the Agreement on Partnership with the EU, Fuentes said.
UNHCR representative Jean Claude Concolato said that since 1998 some 3,700 returnees had regulated their status in Croatia, while some 900 refugees remained in three neighbouring countries.
This problem may be solved in the spirit of the right to return. Those people consider Croatia their home, and if they truly want to live in Croatia, UNHCR believes they should be granted legal status and the right to obtain Croatian citizenship, Concolato said.