CROATIAN DEPUTY FOREIGN MINISTER VISITS ROME

ZAGREB, Jan 28 (Hina) - Croatian Deputy Foreign Minister, Ivo Sanader, on Tuesday met a state undersecretary in the Italian Foreign Ministry, Piero Fassino, in Rome. The Croatian and Italian sides expressed great satisfaction with the ascending line of the Croatian-Italian relations, the Croatian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The talks revolved around the bilateral relations, Italian President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro's visit to Croatia, preparations for an agreement on friendship and cooperation and ratification of an agreement on the minorities' protection by the two Parliaments. Italy completely understands Croatia's interest in joining tripartite agreements of Italy, Hungary and Slovenia and for the time being it supports Croatia's including in concrete projects such as an European corridor 5 (Barcelona-Trieste-Kiev) and cooperation of northern Adriatic ports. The Italian side fully backed Croatia's approach to the European integration, and stressed that it was necessary that negotiations on an agreement on the cooperation with EU should soon be resumed and the PHARE programme in Croatia activated. Italy supports the individual approach of central and southeastern European countries to the European integration processes through bilateral talks. The Italian side greeted the successful process of the peaceful reintegration of the Croatian Danubian area describing the Croatian Government's Letter of Intent, submitted to the U.N. Security Council, as a key step in the successful completion of peaceful reintegration. The two sides agreed that it was necessary that the Washington and Dayton agreements should be consistently respected in Bosnia- Herzegovina with the purpose to stabilize completely the situation in a wide region, according to the statement. (hina) mm mš 281754 MET jan 97