CROATIA GETS ITS PLACE IN EUROPEAN TRAFFIC NETWORK - LUZAVEC

HELSINKI, June 25 (Hina) - In Helsinki, Croatia got its place in the European traffic grid, thus fully valorising its traffic status, Croatian Maritime Affairs, Transport and Communications Minister, Zeljko Luzavec, said in Helsinki on Wednesday. Luzavec lead a Croatian delegation to the Pan-European Traffic Conference on the development of the traffic network in Europe. The conference ended on Wednesday with the adoption of a declaration on the principles of the European transport policies. The declaration stipulates the extensions to nine traffic corridors important for Europe, set at the conference of 1994 in Crete, as well as a new one, the tenth corridor. Road and rail traffic is to pass via these corridors, connecting important harbours and airports. The declaration also stresses the need for the establishment of stronger traffic connections between Europe and Asia. According to the document, branches of corridor 5 pass through Croatia: Rijeka-Zagreb-Budapest and Ploce-Sarajevo-Osijek-Budapest., as well as the new corridor 10: Salzburg-Zagreb-Solun, and its branch Graz- Maribor-Zagreb. The text mentions also Zagreb-Split as a possible road for the future. "Croatia has received the place it belongs in because the main European corridors North-South and East-West pass through it," Luzavec told Croatian reporters after the conference. The Croatian delegation held talks in Helsinki on Wednesday with a Slovene delegation about the Rijeka-Trieste road. Views had not been harmonised, Luzavec said. Slovenia does not accept the connecting of Rijeka with Trieste, which is important for Croatia, nor the construction of a new Graz- Maribor-Zagreb railway in which Croatia is interested. (hina) lm jn 251729 MET jun 97