Yugoslav Daily Survey, 97-05-21

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From: Yugoslavia <http://www.yugoslavia.com>

Yugoslav Daily Survey

CONTENTS

[01] FULL NORMALISATION OF YUGOSLAV-JAPANESE RELATIONS

[02] INFORMATION ABOUT YUGOSLAVIA, GOVERNMENT PRESENTED ON INTERNET

[03] YUGOSLAV GOVERNMENT PLANS TO SET UP YUGOSLAV RADIO-TV

[04] US AMBASSADOR WARNS CROATIA OVER TREATMENT OF SERBS

[05] YUGOSLAV DEPUTY FOREIGN MINISTER RECEIVES MEXICAN PARLIAMENTARIANS

[06] YUGOSLAV LOWER HOUSE SPEAKER RECEIVES MEXICAN PARLIAMENTARIANS

[01] FULL NORMALISATION OF YUGOSLAV-JAPANESE RELATIONS

Tanjug, 1997-05-20

Yugoslavia and Japan on Tuesday upgraded their relations to the ambassadorial level at the latter country's initiative, Yugoslav Foreign Ministry said.

Accordingly, Yugoslav Foreign Minister Milan Milutinovic and Japanese Minister Yukihiko Ikeda exchanged letters confirming the appointment of ambassadors as soon as possible and the validity of all agreements reached between the two countries.

The two sides agreed that a new chapter had been opened in the development of Yugoslav-Japanese relations, making possible the promotion of cooperation in a large number of spheres, especially in the economic and financial domain.

[02] INFORMATION ABOUT YUGOSLAVIA, GOVERNMENT PRESENTED ON INTERNET

Tanjug, 1997-05-20

Yugoslav Prime Minister Radoje Kontic and Government members have attended the presentation of information home page about Yugoslavia and Yugoslav official organs on the international computer network Internet, Yugoslav Information Secretariat said in a statement on Tuesday.

About 40 million users of the network can now obtain official data about Yugoslavia, attitudes of the Yugoslav Parliament, Yugoslav President and Yugoslav Government and other federal institutions.

At the presentation in Belgrade, Kontic said the introducing of the Yugoslav home page on Internet was another important contribution to the process of spreading the truth and presenting Yugoslavia in media, the Secretariat said in the statement.

The Yugoslav home page address on Internet is: www.gov.yu.

[03] YUGOSLAV GOVERNMENT PLANS TO SET UP YUGOSLAV RADIO-TV

Tanjug, 1997-05-20

Yugoslav Information Secretary Goran Matic told a news conference on Tuesday that the Federal Government intended to set up a Yugoslav radio-TV.

Secretary Matic said it was the Federal Government's position that 'it is necessary to define a Yugoslav radio-TV, which will electronically cover all of Yugoslav territory and secure the equality of all citizens in terms of information at the level of the federal state.'

He set out that it was not right for Yugoslavia to be the only federal state in Europe without its own TV.

Matic confirmed that the Federal Government would go ahead with its earlier announced plan to have a new federal information law passed by the end of the year.

'Under the Constitutional law, the regulation was to be adjusted to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia by 1993, but that was not done for various reasons, so that several laws from the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia are still in force,' the Yugoslav Information Secretary told the press.

'These laws are obsolete because their ideological foundations and features are those of the former state, which is the case with the laws on the bringing of the foreign press into the country and its distribution and on the work of foreign media, and also with some agreements on cultural and information centres,' Secretary Matic specified.

He set out that the Federal Government would fuse the laws into a single act 'whose purpose and goal will be to define democratic principles of society's development in keeping with the European, and also to give additional legitimacy to new forms of communication and the new technical- technological development of media.'

'The purpose of the law will be to secure the exchange of information on Yugoslav territory and also the rule of law, as the basic principle of every state, meaning the equality of all citizens in the information process,' Yugoslav Information Secretary Matic told the news conference.

He said the number of media in Yugoslavia had doubled since 1992. and Yugoslavia now had as many as 2,600 media, mostly private, including 23 dailies, of which three in the Albanian language.

'All juristic and natural persons in Yugoslavia can engage in information activity the moment they are entered in the register of public media, which says enough about the existence of democratic principles, since there is no institution of permit but only the institution of registration,' Secretary Matic pointed up.

He said that no medium had been set up by the state since 1992. The Yugoslav Information Secretary told journalists that there were more than 300 radio and about 100 TV stations in the country, that of the six news agencies only Tanjug was linked to the state, whereas the others were private, and that there were many professional associations, including some which he said were under a decisive influence of foreign factors (media centre, for instance).

'We also have an abundance of media in the languages of national minorities and ethnic groups, which is well illustrated by the fact that TV Novi Sad has programmes in five languages, and that roughly 30 radio stations in Vojvodina broadcast in eight different languages,' Matic told the press.

He said that 51 newspapers were published in Serbia's southern province of Kosovo and Metohija, of which three dailies in the Albanian language, which he set out meant that the ethnic-Albanian population in the province has an autonomously regulated information domain.

Secretary Matic said that roughly 315 journalists from 37 foreign countries were working in Yugoslavia free of any impediments, and that leading foreign newspapers and magazines could daily be purchased in Belgrade and other cities in the country.

Matic said the Federal Government was plugged into Internet as of Monday, May 19, and everybody who was interested could now communicate with it via Internet and get answers to posed questions within 72 hours.

He set out that the Yugoslav Information Secretariat planned to become an active participants in the exchange of information both at home and aborad, feeling that the domestic and foreign public did not have an adequate picture of Yugoslavia, which he said was an obstacle to the country's faster reintegration into the international community.'

[04] US AMBASSADOR WARNS CROATIA OVER TREATMENT OF SERBS

Reuter, 1997-05-20

US Ambassador Peter Glabraith on Tuesday rammed home the message that Croatia would not win entry to Western institutions unless it allowed all displaced minority Serbs to return home and live in safety.

Galbraith said the United States policy towards Zagreb is 'unambiguous and clear'. 'Croatia will go no further in the process of integration into (the West) unless and until all Croatian Serbs who wish to return to Croatia are able to do so, and this includes Serbs who are currently in Yugoslavia and Bosnia*Herzegovina.'

He said Albright was appalled by a recent incident in the Kostajnica area when Bosnian Croat refugees resettled in the area, harassed and expelled local elderly Serbs.

'It was not an accidental outbreak of violence but evidently something that was organised. It was unacceptable,' Galbraith said.

'It is clear that a state that is not sufficiently strong to create security for its own people is not a state that could qualify for admission to NATO or the European Union," he added in his strongest public criticism of Zagreb so far.

'The issue of return is critical to the whole peace process... If the return doesn't occur here (in Croatia), it probably won't occur anywhere,' Galbraith said.

[05] YUGOSLAV DEPUTY FOREIGN MINISTER RECEIVES MEXICAN PARLIAMENTARIANS

Tanjug, 1997-05-20

Yugoslav Deputy Foreign Minister Radoslav Bulajic received on Tuesday a Mexican parliamentary delegation.

Both sides expressed readiness and interest in the establishment of dialogue and the strengthening of all-round relations and cooperation between the two traditionally friendly countries and peoples, a statement said.

The international position of the two countries and their foreign-policy priorities were also discussed. The exchange of views reflected very close views.

The Mexican parliamentarians reiterated their country's full support to Yugoslavia's speedy return to the United Nations and other international organizations.

[06] YUGOSLAV LOWER HOUSE SPEAKER RECEIVES MEXICAN PARLIAMENTARIANS

Tanjug, 1997-05-20

Yugoslavia's Parliament Chamber of Citizens (Lower House) Speaker Milomir Minic received a delegation of the Mexican Parliament on Tuesday.

The several-member delegation, headed by Senator Judith Irene Murgia Coral, is paying a visit to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on the Yugoslav Parliament's invitation.

The two sides noted that the visit reaffirmed the historically friendly bilateral relations and reflected the two nations' interest in developing all-round cooperation, specifically economic. Both sides noted a need for resuming and further developing inter-parliamentary cooperation, a statement said.

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