TRAINING AND EQUIPPING OF FEDERATION ARMY TO COST $70 MILLION

( Editorial: --> 1403 ) SARAJEVO, Feb 12 (Hina) - The training and setting up of the joint military forces of the Muslim-Croat Federation of Bosnia- Herzegovina (FBH) in the first year of the "Equip and Train" programme costed US$42 million. The second phase, which lasts until September this year, is expected to cost $28 million, said Enes Becirbasic, coordinator of the "Equip and Train" programme in the FBH Defence Ministry. At a press conference in Sarajevo on Thursday, Becirbasic said these costing facts related exclusively to training and not equipment which was donated. He explained that during the past year and a half the Federation Army had received an integrated organisational structure and some integrated Croat-Bosniak (Muslim) military units had become operational. Becirbasic emphasised, however, that the equipping process was still not finished and that the Federation Army was completely supplied with only artillery weapons and some smaller equipment. The Federation Army still had a shortfall in a certain number of tanks and armoured personnel carriers, while it did not have any combat aircraft or helicopters, Becirbasic said. The FBH budget for 1998 allocated 200 million DM for defence. Actual needs have been estimated at about one billion DM. (Hina) jn mb 121521 MET feb 98