FM Kovač chairs SEECP meeting in NY

(Hina) - Croatia's caretaker Foreign Minister Miro Kovač, who was attending the United Nations' General Assembly in New York, chaired a ministerial meeting of South-East European Cooperation Process (SEECP) members

(Hina) - Croatia's caretaker Foreign Minister Miro Kovač, who was attending the United Nations' General Assembly in New York, chaired a ministerial meeting of South-East European Cooperation Process (SEECP) members, held on the margins of the General Assembly on Thursday morning.

On that occasion, Kovač said a meeting would be held in Vienna on 24 September focusing on scenarios for a possible new migrant wave and on ways of handling it. He added that Croatia would be represented by caretaker Prime Minister Tihomir Orešković.

The Croatian foreign minister is due to meet his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in New York later on Thursday for talks on bilateral cooperation.

Croatia does not support any action that would jeopardise the survival of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Foreign Minister Miro Kovač said on Thursday in a comment on a referendum to be held in the Bosnian Serb entity of Republika Srpska (RS) on September 25.

"We want a unified and strong Bosnia and Herzegovina where all three peoples are constituent and equal," Kovač said in New York, where he was attending a UN General Assembly session.

As a signatory to the Dayton peace agreement, Croatia will work to help Bosnia and Herzegovina survive as a state and it will support its integration with the European Union, said Kovač.

In the referendum Bosnian Serb authorities have set for this Sunday, entity residents will vote on whether to comply with a ruling of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina that declared the commemoration of January 9 as Republika Srpska Day unconstitutional.

Despite the Constitutional Court's decision to ban the referendum, the vote will be held. The Russian Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Petr Ivantsov, has supported the plan by the Serb entity authorities and RS President Milorad Dodik on Thursday left for Moscow at the invitation of President Vladimir Putin.



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