YDS 12/21

Yugoslav Daily Survey Directory

From: [email protected] (D.D. Chukurov)

21 DECEMBER 1995 YDS-1043

C O N T E N T S:

FROM THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF YUGOSLAVIA - YUGOSLAV PARLIAMENT ENDORSES DAYTON PEACE AGREEMENT - YUGOSLAVIA AND CROATIA ESTABLISH TELEPHONE LINKS

LILIC IN CHINA - YUGOSLAV PRESIDENT VISITS SHANGHAI

I N T E R V I E W S - FRENCH PLAN FOR SARAJEVO

ON SARAJEVO - SERBS ASKED NOT TO FLEE FROM SARAJEVO

FROM FOREIGN PRESS - CROATIA CONTINUES POLICY OF SCORCHED EARTH

YUGOSLAV PARLIAMENT ENDORSES DAYTON PEACE AGREEMENT Belgrade, Dec. 20 (Tanjug) - Yugoslav Foreign Minister Milan Milutinovic said here Wednesday that the two chambers of the Yugoslav Parliament had unanimously endorsed a report on the Dayton peace agreement. Mulutinovic told reporters after submitting the report at the Parliament's closed-door session, 'we shall further discuss this, especially the accord with NATO, which is to be ratified by Parliament.' Milutinovic said the accord with NATO related to the arrival of troops and in no way differed from the accord with the UNPROFOR. He said the Yugoslav Parliament had on time been informed about the Dayton peace agreement, signed in Paris on Dec. 14, and stressed that no new conditions had been set in Dayton for the lifting of the sanctions against Yugoslavia. Milutinovic said as far as the dispute between Yugoslavia and Croatia over the Adriatic peninsula of Prevlaka was concerned, 'the Croatian side is absolutely failing to respect the reached accords.' 'We have reached a very precise accord on Prevlaka and about the access to the Adriatic for Republika Srpska. They (Croatia) made a promise which they have now broken,' Milutinovic said. He said 'an accord on the mutual recognition of the F.R. of Yugoslavia and Croatia and a framework accord on a triple exchange of territories between Bosnia, Croatia and Yugoslavia' had been initialled in Dayton. Milutinovic specified that under the initialled accord, Yugoslavia was to get Prevlaka and Republika Srpska access to the Adriatic. 'We agreed on the exchange square meter by square meter, but it has not been translated into practice, obviously due to Croatia's internal reasons,' Milutinovic said. 'The issue of Prevlaka has not fully been resolved, because it (Prevlaka) has not been handed over to Croatia but instead to the United Nations,' he stressed. Milutinovic said Croatia had been recognized by international factors on condition the issue of Prevlaka be resolved, but the issue remained open. He said it should not be resolved by means of force. He said that as far as the Srem-Baranja region was concerned, 'everything has been resolved under the agreement between the region's Serbs and the Republic of Croatia.' He told the press that the participating countries would be in charge of the accord on disarmament which was on the agenda of the Bonn Conference, and that the manner of control and very implementation of the accord were yet to be discussed. Milutinovic said Yugoslavia's status in the United Nations 'has nothing to do with the sanctions.' 'We have had very poor interpretations in the public. Our seat in the U.N. has not been disputed. We have not been expelled from the U.N. and are still a member of the world organization,' the Yugoslav Foreign Minister told journalists. Milutinovic said 'the problem can very simply be resolved if Yugoslavia applies for admission to the U.N.' 'However, it would be absurd for a country co-founder of the U.N., and not only of that organization but also of the league of nations, to seek to be admitted to an organization in whose foundation it has participated,' he set out. Milutinovic said that Yugoslavia was engaged in talks on the resumption of cooperation with the international monetary fund and the World bank. He said, 'it is a quite complex, but customary procedure.' The Foreign Minister said the issue of 'succession is a material issue, one of the the distribution of assets of the former Yugoslavia, and it should not be confused with continuity.' Milutinovic said that 'the continuity of the F.R. of Yugoslavia derives from the continuity of the statehood of Serbia and Montenegro, because they lent their international legal continuity' in the previous Yugoslavias to the others who were part of those Yugoslavias. Milutinovic said talks had started on the mutual recognition between Yugoslavia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia on the basis of the same formula as that for the mutual recognition with Croatia. 'The formula relates to the total continuity of the F.R. of Yugoslavia, which Croatia has absolutely accepted. Macedonia also accepts this but it adds some demands concerning the recognition of the continuity of the Macedonian state from 1941,' the Foreign Minister said. Asked about Yugoslavia's recognition by the European Union, Milutinovic said, 'that is a process which is starting to unfold just now' because the E.U. is 'a complex mechanism.' The Yugoslav Foreign Minister said Yugoslavia would permit the presence of observers of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Serbia's southern province of Kosovo and Metohija 'only on condition our country is a member of that organization.'

YUGOSLAVIA AND CROATIA ESTABLISH TELEPHONE LINKS Belgrade, Dec. 20 (Tanjug) - Telephone links between Yugoslavia and Croatia were restored on wednesday with the conversation between Yugoslav and Croatian Foreign Ministers Milan Milutinovic and mate Granic. Milutinovic and Granic stressed the special importance of the restoration of full telephone links which should enable citizens of Yugoslavia and Croatia to communicate directly again, the Yugoslav Foreign Ministry said in its statement.

LILIC IN CHINA

YUGOSLAV PRESIDENT VISITS SHANGHAI Shanghai, Dec. 20 (Tanjug) - Yugoslav President Zoran Lilic who is on an official visit to China spent Wednesday in Shanghai where he informed himself about the results of the city's speedy development, spurred by China's policy of reforms and opening up to the world. The Yugoslav delegation visited the memorial house in the old part of the city where the communist party of China was founded in 1921. Lilic expressed, in the vistors' book, wishes for eternal friendship between the two countries and for China to continue on the road of prosperity and development. At talks with the mayor of Shanghai the possibilities of the biggest Chinese economic, trade and financial center were presented to Lilic.

I N T E R V I E W S

FRENCH PLAN FOR SARAJEVO Paris, Dec. 20 (Tanjug) - French Foreign Minister Herve De Charette said on Wednesday that Paris wants to send an Ambassador to the F.R. of Yugoslavia. In an interview to Wednesday's issue of the daily Le Figaro, De Charette said it is necessary to secure the safety of the Serbs in Sarajevo and that France is currently working on this. 'There still exist two Sarajevos. The problem is to bring them together,' De Charette said indicating that France has a plan for the administration of the city. The plan is that every community will govern those parts of the city where it is in the majority. De Charette said it would be unconceivable to build a Berlin wall or to create a Jerusalem situation. 'In the future it will be necessary to secure the safety of all citizens and their property,' he said. France clearly still fears a possible mass exodus of the Serb population from Sarajevo and this is why it has demanded international guarantees. De Charette warned that the situation in Bosnia remains volatile. He said that the Dayton agreement has paved a way towards a peace, but that still much has to be done. This is why peace should be reached on the spot, De Charette said adding that 'the Serbs, Croats and Muslims should be aware that the engagement of the international community is not unlimited.' France believes that of vital importance are the activities of the F.R. of Yugoslavia and the implementation of the Dayton agreement and that this is why it is necessary to immediately normalize relations with Yugoslavia. 'France wants to send an ambassador to Belgrade as soon as possible. It wants its European partners to do the some. It is time for transferring from the logic of war to the logic of peace,' De Charette said.

ON SARAJEVO

SERBS ASKED NOT TO FLEE FROM SARAJEVO Belgrade, Dec. 20 (Tanjug) - Head of Sarajevo's Serb municipality of Ilidza Nedjeljko Prstojevic has asked Serbs not to flee from Serb parts of Sarajevo which are to be placed under jurisdiction of the Muslim-Croat federation, telling them their safety was secured, the Bosnian Serb news agency SRNA said. Ilidza is one of several Serb-populated municipalities of Sarajevo which are to pass under Muslim-Croat jurisdiction under the Bosnia peace accords signed in Paris on Dec. 14. 'It is important that those Serbs who wish to leave this territory do not do so in haste, because there is no reason for that,' Prstojevic said in reaction to statements by many Serbs that they would rather leave their homes in ashes than remain in them when the Serb army left Sarajevo's suburbs. Prstojevic specified that the Serb side, 'in cooperation with international police forces, will try to secure the safety of the population of Serb Sarajevo, while Muslim police will remain in the parts of the city under federal control.' He said the situation would continue like this until the elections, and that the situation after that would depend on the ethnic structure of the remaining population, SRNA said. Serb rights will be protected by the authorities of Republika Srpska (the Bosnian Serb Republic), the peace implementation force, International Police Forces, and others, Prstojevic said. Where Ilidza is concerned, he said, Serbs 'will fight for territory, the population and its property using political and diplomatic means.'

FROM FOREIGN PRESS

CROATIA CONTINUES POLICY OF SCORCHED EARTH Belgrade, Dec. 20 (Tanjug) - The systematic implementation of the scorched earth policy by the Croatian occupation forces has turned into a real hell those parts of the Bosanska Krajina region which, under the Dayton peace agreement, should be returned to the Republika Srpska, western correspondents in the field report. The army of neighbouring Croatia, together with the Muslim forces, in late September launched an aggression on Serb towns in the western parts of Republika Srpska. The Washington Post said that the the town of Sipovo has been looted and torched by the Croatian troops in protest against the peace agreement. The Post's reporter said that the Croats are also destroying nearby Mrkonjic Grad, although the U.N. and the western countries warned that arson represents a violation of the Dayton agreement. The paper writes about the 'conduct of the small military monster who is slipping out of control of its creators,' as moderate U.S. analysts are increasingly saying. The New York Times also paints an apocalyptic picture of the Krajina towns and villages which will soon be returned to the Serbs and where 'the Croatian forces are systematically looting, torching houses or planting infantry mines in the remaining apartment buildings.' 'A third of the houses have been burned down in Mrkonjic Grad,' captain Colin Bell of the British peace troops told the U.S. paper. Bell said that 'the NATO IFOR, which will contain British, French and U.S. troops which will be deployed in this region, will not tolerate such conduct by the Croatian army and will firmly stop all such actions.' Capt. Bell said that 'the Bosnian Croat troops are largely independent from the Bosnian government army, despite the fact that a Muslim-Croat federation was formed in 1993 at the end of their mutual conflicts.'