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BOSNIA: KOSTUNICA VISIT

(5 Mar 2001) Serbo-Croat/Nat XFA Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica is in the Serb-run half of Bosnia to meet his Bosnian Serb counterpart and sign an agreement on close cooperation in areas, including the economy. Kostunica arrived in Banja Luka, the de facto capital and administrative centre of the Bosnian Serb mini-state for the signing on Monday. He was greeted by Bosnian Serb President Mirko Sarovic and a guard of honour.. According to the Dayton peace agreement which ended the Bosnian war, the country is divided into two mini-states - the Serb republic and the Muslim-Croat federation. Both have the right to maintain special relations with the neighbouring countries of Croatia and Yugoslavia. About two-thousand people greeted Kostunica, carrying Yugoslav and Bosnian Serb flags and chanting "Vojo, don't let the Serbs go to The Hague", encouraging the Yugoslav president in his resistance to international pressure to hand over Serb war crimes suspects to the war crimes tribunal in the Netherlands. The two presidents then signed an agreement on close cooperation in areas such as the economy, education and defence. The agreement is designed to bring Bosnia's Serbs closer to Yugoslavia. But the visit and the signing will anger other Bosnian leaders, who say such an agreement cannot be signed between only one of the three presidents of Bosnia. They say the sensitive accord should have been discussed with them first. They are also offended by the timing of the visit, which falls on Eid, one of the most important Muslim festivals. After the signing ceremony, Kostunica said the Yugoslav parliament must approve new legislation before it can cooperate with the tribunal in sending indicted war criminals to the Hague for trial. Among others, the Hague tribunal is seeking to try former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. SOUNDBITE: (Serbo-Croat) "If you read the Yugoslav constitution you will see that my powers are rather limited. And regardless to the powers and limits there are a certain civilised norms which have to be fulfilled, which means that there must be an evidence in order to start investigation or make an arrest. I can tell you that much. The Yugoslav parliament must adopt new legislation before we can cooperate with the Hague Tribunal. Without that, we would be behaving like an uncivilized gang which is handing over its citizens to someone without a legal basis." SUPER CAPTION: Vojislav Kostunica, Yugoslav President SOUNDBITE: (Serbo-Croat) "The situation in the South of Serbia has a lot of influence on the security in the region. We are faced with classical undisguised terrorism. There were some cases of oppressing minorities but now it is in the past. Now we have a new government in Belgrade and we immediately stated the wishes to cooperate and respect minorities and will try to integrate them in political life." SUPER CAPTION: Vojislav Kostunica, Yugoslav President Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...