CROATIAN AMBASSADOR TO U.N. GIVES INTERVIEW TO CNN

ZAGREB, Feb 16 (Hina) - The outgoing Croatian ambassador to the United Nations, Mario Nobilo, gave an interview to the US television network CNN which was broadcast early Sunday morning Croatian time, in which he assessed Croatia's accomplishments in the last five years. Speaking in the Diplomatic License show, Nobilo said that during his five-year tenure Croatia had managed to become a member of the United Nations, isolate Yugoslavia from the world organization and get economic sanctions imposed against it because of its aggression against Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. During that time, Croatia had also managed to restore partnership with the Bosnian Moslems and achieve the Dayton peace accords under American leadership, he added. Responding to a question on the Moslem-Croat partnership in the light of the latest events in the southern Bosnian town of Mostar as evidence of how this partnership worked, Nobilo said that he did not want to blame any of the sides before the official investigation had been finished. We are very sorry to see that Mostar is under the spotlight again, Nobilo said, adding that the Mostar issue was very complex and that both Croats and Moslems were responsible for the recent events. Speaking of the peaceful reintegration of the UN-administered Danube river region of eastern Croatia and the departure of the UN peace force from the region, Nobilo said that the UN peacekeeping troops were scheduled to leave Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Srijem this summer. Asked if he expected any problems there after the completion of the reintegration process, Nobilo expressed a hope that most Serbs living in the region would stay there because Croatia did not need a new exodus of local Serbs. We hope that they will become Croatian citizens and take part in the forthcoming elections, he stressed. Nobilo, who will become ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna, said that the UN peacekeeping operations in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, the biggest in the history of the United Nations, would have far-reaching effects not only on collective European security but also on future peacekeeping operations in post-Cold War Europe. (hina) vm 161029 MET feb 97