INTERNATIONAL HIGH REPRESENTATIVE VISITS NORTHERN BOSNIAN TOWN

( Editorial: --> 6919 ) BRCKO, Mar 3 (Hina) - The international community's High Representative for the implementation of the Dayton accords in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Carlos Westendorp, on Wednesday visited the north-eastern Bosnian town of Brcko. Westendorp met representatives of the multi-ethnic authorities, the judiciary and the police in the Serb-held town. At a press conference on arbitration which will decide which of the two entities will control Brcko, Westendorp said a great responsibility rested with Robert Owen, the international arbiter and president of the arbitral tribunal for Brcko. He emphasised that the arbitration decision had to be accepted by both governments in the two entities of Bosnia-Herzegovina. When asked whether all the parties, and especially the Serbs, had met goals from the interim arbitration decision in Rome last year, Westendorp said no party had fully respected the tasks outlined in that decision. He also said the international community would give Brcko special aid when the arbitral tribunal released its decision later this month, adding he would personally intercede for this. Brcko, in which Serbs made only 20 per cent of the population before the war, was occupied at the start of the war as a key point in the corridor between Serbia and the Serb-controlled territory in north-western Bosnia. The town is currently a part of the Bosnian Serb entity. (Hina) jn mb /mr 032157 MET mar 98