GRANIC MEETS DUTCH & DANISH FOREIGN MINISTERS

( Editorial: --> 2610 ) NEW YORK, Sept 23 (Hina) - Croatian Foreign Minister Mate Granic met with several European foreign ministers in New York on Wednesday. Talks held with the Dutch Foreign Minister Jozias van Aartensen and Denmark's Niels Helveg Petersen have shown that Europe does not have any strong objections to Croatia's implementation of the return programme, Granic said. The Danish foreign minister believes that there has been certain advancement in this field and that the European Union will continue carefully monitoring the situation. The Croatian Government is well aware that Denmark considers the return of refugees as a very important issue and that returns should be made as simple as possible, said Petersen following the meeting. With regard to visas to Denmark for Croatian citizens - they remain. There are no changes for now, Petersen said. The European foreign ministers re-iterated the expectations towards and preconditions for Croatia to access European associations. "Croatia considers that this process must not be stopped by anything. It believes that the PHARE programme should be unfrozen and that the EU will participate at the conference for reconstruction and development", said Granic. (Hina) sp/rml 232030 MET sep 98