BiH delegation (Co-Chairman of the CoM, Boro Bosic, Vice Chairman Neven Tomic, Minister for Foreign Trade, Mirsad Kurtovic) departed for Paris, for negotiations with the Paris Club of Creditors. It is expected that an agreement on the write-off of the part of the BH debt will be signed on Wednesday. The issue was also discussed at a meeting between the Co-Chairman of the CoM, Haris Silajdzic, and British Ambassador to Bosnia, Graham Hand.
1:30
Negotiations on special relations between Croatia and the BH Federation continued in the Croatian Ministry of Foreign Affairs this morning. During the afternoon, the negotiating teams prepared a joint text of the agreement, and presented it to the US mediator Richard Sclar and the HR Principal Deputy Jacques Klein. Should all the details from the text be brought into accord, the agreement might be initialled tomorrow.
1:00
Newly appointed SFOR commander, Gen. Montgomery Meigs, met with President Izetbegovic today. The two discussed the situation in BiH following the elections. Izetbegovic asked for more concrete help by SFOR units in the implementation of the civilian part of the DPA, with an emphasis to the support of the refugee return process.
0:40
President of the BiH Parliament HoR, Enver Kreso, scheduled a meeting of the parliamentary parties’ representatives. Among other issues, they are expected to decide on the agenda of the HoR constitutional session, election of the temporary verification commission, election of the President, Deputy President and Secretary of the HofR.
0:30
Mirza Hajric in his power of the President of the Steering Board for the Implementation of the Sarajevo Declaration (SD), and the President of the BiH Trade Union, Sulejman Hrle, invited the IC representatives to suggest the (continuation of) investments in the renovation of apartments in Sarajevo. According to the two, this would create conditions for consistent implementation of the SD, as well as for the protection of rights of both the people living in the flats, and the returnees. Hajric reiterated that over 15,000 demands for return could not be realised for there is a shortage of flats. Hrle appealed that evictions be stopped, while the Sarajevo canton Governor, Midhat Haracic, rejected speculations on legally unfounded evictions.
1:30
Kosovo – TV BiH focused on Javier Solana’s insistence that Milosevic should urgently and completely respect the peace agreement on Kosovo, shortly ahead of the expiration of the NATO‘s deadline. The threats of airstrikes are reported as having become more moderate now.
1:30
RS President Plavsic and Premier Dodik met with the Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic. The cooperation between RS and Montenegro was discussed. Djukanovic commented on the new Information Law in Serbia, labelling it as “a step back in the development of democracy in Serbia”.
1:00
148 victims from the Glumina mass grave were preliminary identified today. The report on the identification also included a relatively long vox populi of eyewitnesses who “were at the edge of death…” in 1992 and who “confirmed the tragic of Glumina”.
2:00
UNHCR revoked Vogosca’s status of an open city on October 13. The UNHCR spokesperson, Wendy Rappeport, said that the reason for this was the unwillingness of local authorities to cooperate in the domain of minority returns (only 17 cases out of 115 were solved up until now). This statement was contrasted by the Vogosca Mayor Mehmed Kozadra’s reiteration that 53 families, i.e. 106 individuals have returned to the municipality up until now. The reporter commented that the discrepancy reflected the difference between the UNHCR and Vogosca authorities’ inceptions – UNHCR takes into account only the actual number of returnees, while the latter claim that the number of ‘conditions created for possible minority returns’ was more significant. The report concluded with an emphasis on the fact that 7,992 refugees now live in Vogosca, most of them being the refugees from Srebrenica, and that 3,500 of current Bosniak inhabitants of Vogosca cannot return to their pre-war homes. It was also highlighted that ‘ex-returnees’ also exist in BiH now – i.e. people who sell their renovated houses (“Serbs sell their renovated houses… thus further complicating the situation… in Vogosca”.)
2:30
Bosniak refugees started moving out of Croat houses in Polje, to a temporary settlement in Sutina, before they finally return to their pre-war houses in Stolac and Capljina. 66 houses, out of a total of 120, were emptied up until today.
1:30