Pale – CoM Co-Chair, Bosic talked with SFOR General Monsuy about the opening of the Banja Luka airport for civilian traffic. IC should allow the opening because this airport fulfils all the necessary conditions. Bosic said that SFOR is seriously considering opening of the airport since it meets both technical and staffing requirements for operation, whereas the Tuzla and Mostar ones are objectively in bad condition. They also talked about the RS media, and the situation with Pale SRT. The General said that the media must be open and free.
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Pale – Member of BiH Presidency, Krajisnik talked with the OSCE political representative, Kuznecev behind closed doors. SRNA learned that the discussion was about the Belgrade Agreement and Plavsic’s and Krajisnik’s recent visit to Belgrade. After the meeting Kuznecev only said that this was not a special meeting since they hold such meetings on a regular basis. However, he did not want to go into details of their discussion.
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Banja Luka – RS Vice-president Mirjanic met the British experts for reconstruction and development of marketing, and discussed the opening of a number of marketing training courses. The experts will also co-operate with the Banja Luka University.
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Prijedor/Krupa na Uni – RS Government delegation, headed by Klickovic, visited the two towns and talked with the local leadership about the local election results and economic development of these regions. They also visited the Orthodox church in Rudice where Patriarch Pavle conducted a mass on the occasion of an Orthodox religious festivity.
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Flash news:
World media reported that yesterday’s meeting in Belgrade between Plavsic, Krajisnik, and Milosevic was yet another slap in Pale leadership’s face. Austrian media said that Krajisnik made a concession by accepting the OSCE postponement of RS parliamentary elections to Nov. 23. This was a defeat of the nationalistic faction. German media also reported on the meeting, saying that Milosevic persuaded the RS leaders to co-operate. The Dutch media said that the local elections have not changed anything, commenting on Muslim loss over Brcko even though OSCE did not allow 3,000 Serbs to vote.
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Banja Luka – regular IC press conference – OSCE confirmed that the RS parliamentary elections will be held on Nov. 23 and invited all political parties to register, underlining that the deadline for the registration is October 20. IPTF and SFOR stressed the problem of Serb refugees returning to villages in the Drvar area, where local Croats are severely violating Annex 7 of the DPA and threatening Serbs in order to prevent them to return.
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Party comments:
The Socialist Party said that they the mayor of Banja Luka should be elected from their ranks since they gained the majority of votes in this municipality. The RS SDP is in favour of holding of the parliamentary elections, saying that they would either join a coalition of Serb parties or run for elections on their own. The Communist Party – Movement for Yugoslavia said that all left-oriented parties should establish a bloc for the forthcoming elections. Commenting on the Belgrade meeting, they said that the meeting represented an additional ‘cosmetic touch’ for the previously signed Belgrade Agreement.
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Federation – Sarajevo – Croatian and Muslim authorities could not agree on the use of the Ploce port, because Croatia insisted on getting its share from the trade of goods that would travel through the Croatian territory to BiH. Since they could not find perpetrators of the recent attack on the Catholic church (sic!) in Sarajevo, Federation authorities offered an award to anyone who would help in finding them.
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